The Test for Donald Trump: Win Delegates, Not Just Voters
The volatile nominating contest has effectively spun off into two simultaneous races: one for votes and one for delegates. And they are starkly different.
Winning New York in a landslide — he captured all of the state’s 62 counties except his borough, Manhattan — Mr. Trump demonstrated the breadth of his support and his resilience in the aftermath of a loss in Wisconsin two weeks ago. With just 15 states remaining on the primary calendar, he has left little doubt about his popular appeal.
But the sturdy opposition to his candidacy within the party and his own organizational deficiencies have hampered him at the state and local level, where a byzantine process is underway to elect delegates to the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer. Senator Ted Cruz has dominated that esoteric inside game until now. And if Mr. Trump falls short of clinching the nomination after all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five territories have held their contests, those delegates could make their own decisions after the first ballot in Cleveland.
All of which has made for incongruous split-screen politics: While Mr. Trump draws adulatory crowds by the thousands to his rallies in arenas and airplane hangars, he has suffered setback after setback in the roadside hotels and high school auditoriums where Republican Party activists decide who will serve as delegates. Whether Mr. Trump can win on both fronts — gaining steam at the ballot box, and winning over more delegates should he need them in a floor fight — poses as stiff a test as he has confronted since announcing his candidacy. In short, he and his team must catch up to his standing in the race.
Mr. Trump asserted in his typically boastful remarks on Tuesday night that the personal preferences of delegates would be moot at the convention. He vowed to capture the votes needed to win 1,237 bound delegates, enough to win the nomination on the convention’s first ballot in July.
“We don’t have much of a race anymore,” he told hundreds of supporters celebrating at his Midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Tuesday night. “Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.”
But for all his bravado, Mr. Trump’s recent actions betray a recognition that he has reached a pivotal moment in his quest for the White House. Installing political veterans atop his campaign, committing to an eight-figure budget for the duration of the primary, and at least trying to impose a measure of discipline on himself, he appears mindful that if he does not improve his performance in the final six weeks of voting, he risks having the nomination snatched from his grasp.
“He ran a wonderfully effective guerrilla war, and after Wisconsin he came to the realization that it was not going to be enough to get him to the nomination,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who has praised but not endorsed Mr. Trump. “So now he has to make a transition.”
Mr. Trump took steps in the days leading up to the New York primary to show that he was capable of restraint: He sat out two consecutive weeks of Sunday news shows, a sacrifice for a candidate who relishes television appearances. He used prepared notes to expound on his definition of “New York values,” the phrase Mr. Cruz had used against him in a derogatory manner. He even expressed a measure of regret, suggesting that he had been wrong to attack Mr. Cruz’s wife on Twitter. And he has resisted the urge to bring out the flamethrower on that social network in recent days.
By bringing in strategists with presidential experience, like Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, Mr. Trump also showed a willingness to overhaul his staff that could make him more competitive in a delegate-by-delegate contest or a convention showdown.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly been outmaneuvered in the selection of individual delegates because he did not build an organization capable of the needed mechanics: identifying supporters, helping them run for delegate slots and then getting other supporters to attend state and local conventions to vote in the pro-Trump delegate slates. His new lieutenants must move quickly to correct those deficiencies in the remaining states if he is to be competitive should the nomination fight go past the first ballot. But maintaining discipline is more difficult than hiring new aides. Even some of Mr. Trump’s allies privately doubt that he can control his outbursts. And some Republicans believe that his adjustments are too late, that he is destined to lose at a convention because of a long litany of missteps and political trespasses earlier in the campaign.
“This transition needed to happen much earlier,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist and former aide to Jeb Bush’s campaign. “People aren’t going to forget the months of outrageous and incendiary comments.”
Still, Mr. Trump has a powerful weapon on his side: public opinion. More than three out of five Republicans surveyed last week by NBC and The Wall Street Journal said that if no presidential candidate received a majority of delegates before the convention, the nomination should go to the candidate with the most votes. So Mr. Trump has ratcheted up his critique of what he calls a “rigged” nominating process, complaining that he can win millions more votes than Mr. Cruz but still potentially be denied the nomination.
“Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting,” he said at his victory party on Tuesday, making a new appeal for a return to “the old way: It’s called you vote and you win.”
His attacks on the party’s process have irritated Republican leaders who see his effort to delegitimize a set of rules he failed to master as a risk to his prospects should he ultimately become the nominee.
“He has to be careful,” said Rob Gleason, the state Republican chairman in Pennsylvania, which votes next Tuesday. “You cannot be elected president of the United States as a Republican unless you have the Republican Party behind you, period.”
For now, Mr. Trump’s eyes are on the Republican primary voters and the convention delegates who control his fate — two campaigns wrapped into one.
“This is a multilevel audience play,” said Laura Ingraham, the conservative talk show host, who has relished Mr. Trump’s rise. “The message to the voters is that ‘The system is corrupt and has to be changed, and I’m the real outsider.’ To the delegates, he’s playing a you-better-watch-it game — because the people are on to you.”
“We don’t have much of a race anymore,” he told hundreds of supporters celebrating at his Midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Tuesday night. “Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.”
But for all his bravado, Mr. Trump’s recent actions betray a recognition that he has reached a pivotal moment in his quest for the White House. Installing political veterans atop his campaign, committing to an eight-figure budget for the duration of the primary, and at least trying to impose a measure of discipline on himself, he appears mindful that if he does not improve his performance in the final six weeks of voting, he risks having the nomination snatched from his grasp.
“He ran a wonderfully effective guerrilla war, and after Wisconsin he came to the realization that it was not going to be enough to get him to the nomination,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who has praised but not endorsed Mr. Trump. “So now he has to make a transition.”
Mr. Trump took steps in the days leading up to the New York primary to show that he was capable of restraint: He sat out two consecutive weeks of Sunday news shows, a sacrifice for a candidate who relishes television appearances. He used prepared notes to expound on his definition of “New York values,” the phrase Mr. Cruz had used against him in a derogatory manner. He even expressed a measure of regret, suggesting that he had been wrong to attack Mr. Cruz’s wife on Twitter. And he has resisted the urge to bring out the flamethrower on that social network in recent days.
By bringing in strategists with presidential experience, like Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, Mr. Trump also showed a willingness to overhaul his staff that could make him more competitive in a delegate-by-delegate contest or a convention showdown.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly been outmaneuvered in the selection of individual delegates because he did not build an organization capable of the needed mechanics: identifying supporters, helping them run for delegate slots and then getting other supporters to attend state and local conventions to vote in the pro-Trump delegate slates. His new lieutenants must move quickly to correct those deficiencies in the remaining states if he is to be competitive should the nomination fight go past the first ballot. But maintaining discipline is more difficult than hiring new aides. Even some of Mr. Trump’s allies privately doubt that he can control his outbursts. And some Republicans believe that his adjustments are too late, that he is destined to lose at a convention because of a long litany of missteps and political trespasses earlier in the campaign.
“This transition needed to happen much earlier,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist and former aide to Jeb Bush’s campaign. “People aren’t going to forget the months of outrageous and incendiary comments.”
Still, Mr. Trump has a powerful weapon on his side: public opinion. More than three out of five Republicans surveyed last week by NBC and The Wall Street Journal said that if no presidential candidate received a majority of delegates before the convention, the nomination should go to the candidate with the most votes. So Mr. Trump has ratcheted up his critique of what he calls a “rigged” nominating process, complaining that he can win millions more votes than Mr. Cruz but still potentially be denied the nomination.
“Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting,” he said at his victory party on Tuesday, making a new appeal for a return to “the old way: It’s called you vote and you win.”
His attacks on the party’s process have irritated Republican leaders who see his effort to delegitimize a set of rules he failed to master as a risk to his prospects should he ultimately become the nominee.
“He has to be careful,” said Rob Gleason, the state Republican chairman in Pennsylvania, which votes next Tuesday. “You cannot be elected president of the United States as a Republican unless you have the Republican Party behind you, period.”
For now, Mr. Trump’s eyes are on the Republican primary voters and the convention delegates who control his fate — two campaigns wrapped into one.
“This is a multilevel audience play,” said Laura Ingraham, the conservative talk show host, who has relished Mr. Trump’s rise. “The message to the voters is that ‘The system is corrupt and has to be changed, and I’m the real outsider.’ To the delegates, he’s playing a you-better-watch-it game — because the people are on to you.”
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