For our look at national parties, conventions, and the 2016 presidential election.
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Original story: It’s been a really tough few months for the GOP’s #NeverTrump movement. Donald Trump won a clear majority of delegates who are bound by party rules to back his nomination at the convention — seemingly ensuring that he’ll be the Republican presidential nominee. Game over, right?
Yet the most fervent anti-Trump campaigners have long held on to one slim reed of hope that there’s still a way to stop him. Namely, it’s theoretically possible for those convention delegates to vote to change the party’s rules and "unbind" themselves, so they can vote for whomever they want. And if they manage to do that, they could just ... well, nominate somebody else.
So in recent weeks, a small group of delegates and a slightly larger group of outside operatives and commentators have been publicly pushing for this to happen, under the slogan "Free the Delegates" (or, if you prefer, "Dump Trump").
They’ll make their case to their fellow delegates on Thursday and Friday of this week, when the convention’s rules committee meets in Cleveland.
Update (9:55 pm Eastern): As expected, the proposal to unbind the delegates was overwhelmingly defeated by the convention rules committee. And the Free the Delegates supporters also seem to have fallen short of the threshold they needed to force a vote on their proposal by the full convention. One of the last obstacles to Trump's nomination is now gone.
For more on the subject:
- Can Trump’s opponents manipulate the convention rules and defeat him? Here’s the problem.
