GOP Close To Dumping Trump As Coup Plotters Near Votes Needed To Cause Nomination Chaos

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:09 pm

Republicans are coming close to the number of votes that they need to dump Donald Trump at their convention in Cleveland.

Reid Epstein of The Wall Street Journal reported:
The anti-Trump camp needs the backing of 28, or one-quarter, of the 112 Convention Rules Committee members, in order to place the issue before the full convention. A Wall Street Journal survey suggests it could be close.

In interviews, 20 members said they are willing to consider allowing delegates to be unbound, while 59 support Mr. Trump. The other 33 panelists couldn’t be reached or did not respond to repeated messages.

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Though a majority of the convention delegates are bound to support Mr. Trump, Mr. Evans’s count shows just about 890 delegates are personally loyal to the New Yorker. Another 680 oppose Mr. Trump. That leaves 900 delegates who are presumed to be “in play,” he said. The stop-Trump forces would have to take nearly two-thirds of them to block his nomination.

In other words, if the vote gets to the convention floor on whether or not to unbound the delegates, all hell could break loose. Trump has shown himself to be an incredibly poor organizer, so if a fight for the nomination breaks out, the anti-Trump forces could find themselves with a chance to rid their party of Donald Trump.

The whole scenario is a bit of a long-shot, but the fact that the anti-Trump Republicans nearly have the votes needed to turn the convention into a real fight speaks volumes about the current state of the Republican Party. Instead of a four-day infomercial centered around the self-styled greatness of Donald Trump, the Republican convention could turn into a bare-knuckles political brawl that will Trump emerge from bloodied and bruised.

None of this is good news for Trump. The never Trumps will make one last stand in Cleveland. With the Republican Party so fractured it would not be surprising to see the GOP dump Trump.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association