ITA.
Sure, but you’ll see a situation where Trump is on the ballot in some states. His replacement in others. And both in some places. Then there’s the inevitable write ins for each where they might not be on the ballot. There’s a possibility that no GOP candidate would be listed in some cases (Trump removed, but replacement not eligible to be added). And what the hell does a party line vote look like in those situation. I’m not aware of any current/modern contingency for that situation, and a lot of our modernized election structures likely make it hard to do a clean swap. Before the human factor of voters comes in. It looks to me like it would be a mess that’d split up the GOP vote in crazy ways. You can’t really win a state where you aren’t on the ballot. And you’re unlikely to do so when there are two candidates from your party available. There’s room to clean things on the electors side, but there’s only so much you can do if the actual voting to select those electors is a crazy mess. And once those electors start going “faithless” in an effort to clarify things it gets messy. If they’re already voting counter to their selection why expect all of them will fall in line? That’s worked out really well this time around.
And that’s assuming he drops out and the election happens with no broader effect on the campaign. Given potential weeks for the situation to spin out there’s going to be broad effects. All those Trump voters, many of whom are new, do they just stay home? Do they dig in an vote for him anyway? Does it reinvigorate the never Trumps? Now that they’ve got what they want (and assuming they do)? Or are they all sick enough of this shit that they stay where they are? Not voting or voting for Hilldog? How quickly can the new guy spin up a campaign? And how much time does he have to actually use that campaign? What effect does days or weeks of Hillary running effectively unopposed have?
It’d be a total cluster fuck, and likely hand a land slide to the DNC.
ETA: Oh and I’m not saying they won’t find some way to get a result out at the end, or clarify things, or “fix it”. I’m just of the opinion that the resulting confusion, mess, delay, and embarrassment would likely cost the GOP the election. And potentially not just for POTUS. Especially since the situation pre-supposes that Trump is already losing clearly enough to try and save face. More trouble doesn’t fix that issue. I find it more likely that if Trump even considered this (unlikely given how deluded he is), they’d convince him to play it out in some fashion. Minimize active campaigning while focusing on down ballot races. Possibly allowing for more of the GOPs opportunist assholes to come out against Trump, to make themselves look good at the last minute.
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What’s his ball. The creep has nothing of value.
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Psychopaths.
You know, when Cenk Uygur was on NBC calling that fatuous jack-o-lantern a loser repeatedly, I briefly questioned if that was wise. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s the objective truth and it needs to be said over and over again. It’s more than an opinion. Because he is a loser. He is incompetent. He is an egotistical nimrod who will damage this country, and probably others.
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In the “most unwelcome news” department: have a look at the article below. Per a Stanford law-talking guy, if Trump bolted, the RNC could
- Nominate a replacement
- Replace his name on the ballot where possible (some states allow this as late as September 21
- Depend on electors to vote for the new nominee, NOT Trump, even though his name would still be on the ballot in some states. Apparently, 43 states allow this “rogue” elector behavior, where the party nominee matters, not the name on the ballot.
Of course, this would create such chaos that the GOP candidate would have little to no hope; but, it’s a possibility. We have a hopelessly complicated electoral system.
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That’s sort of what I was getting at. Its not a clean process to change horses mid-stream. You’ll notice the amount of variability in that break down. And the number of times lawsuits and courts get mentioned. MESSY. All I’m saying is that mess makes it even less likely Trump or whoever replaces him would win. Its not a plausible Hail Mary for the GOP.
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I really hate this possibility. If Trump bolts or they replace him, and we get a ridiculous chaotic mess, we’re going to have 4 years of people yelling that Hillary was put into office by fiat, without a fair election, without anyone serious to run against, she should be deposed, etc. etc.
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Well, absolutely. Given that Gore won the 2000 popular vote but conceded after the election was decided by the courts among huge controversy, it’s not surprising that it’s still being questioned fifteen years later.
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Trump is already prepping that response. His reaction to his recent polling drop has been to consistently call the election rigged and to question the veracity of the polling. Likewise he’s been (from the start) dismissing crime stats and unemployment numbers as “suspicious” or out and out fabricated.
You know what that’s Gore’s fault. He filed the law suit. As I understand it the constitution says if an election’s result is contested its supposed to be Congress (then controlled by Dems) who make a final decision. But Gore filed a law suit. The Supreme Court never should have accepted the case, should have punted it while asserting the issue sat with Congress. But they never would have had the chance if Gore didn’t file suit.
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That’s only if the electoral college itself deadlocks. Because the issue at hand was who Florida’s electoral votes would go to in the first place, there was no congressional responsibility to arbitrate the outcome.
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Understood. But from what I remember of the dispute at the time (and coverage since) there was likewise absolutely no precedent or basis for the Courts to get involved in actually deciding the conflict. Where the courts had some roll it would have been in clarifying the situation vis a vi whether it went to congress or not. Since the deadlock over Florida effectively caused a deadlock in the electoral college (by electors being in limbo) it could (and I think should) have been argued that the proper recourse was to Congress, and that sort of ruling would have (apparently) been in line with the role of the courts in this sort of thing and precedent on these sort of cases. But Gore did not appeal to Congress, mention congresses role in this situations, nor did he structure his suit in those terms. Which is why I say its fundamentally Gore’s fault. He filed suit with a republican aligned, conservative court. Rather than pushing this toward a Democratically controlled congress, with a stronger constitutional basis for doing so. A less politicized court, or one following a more logical basis in the law should have punted it entirely, or made it a point to clarify their role vs congresses. Instead the case progressed on the terms Gore set, and it back fired badly.
Nope.
The Constitution doesn’t give Congress any role in the presidential election except to act as a deciding vote if the electoral college is tied. The election hadn’t yet reached that point. Without Florida’s electors, there was no tie to break, and Congress is only empowered to involve itself under that specific circumstance once all votes in the college have been cast.
It doesn’t even make sense to blame Gore for involving the Supreme Court, because he didn’t even file the suit, Bush did (hence why his name comes first in the case title). We could argue until the Sun burns out over whether Gore was right to concede in the wake of the Bush v. Gore ruling, but that’s a secondary question. And while I certainly don’t disagree that the ruling and everything that led up to it was an awful mess which harmed the Supreme Court’s appearance of impartiality and cast doubt on the state of Florida’s competence to carry out a fair election, the courts are where we’re supposed to go to arbitrate disputes like this. I think the Supreme Court’s handling of the case was atrocious, but that doesn’t mean there was no reason or precedent for them to hear it in the first place. Sure, a less politicized court could have issued a more well-reasoned ruling that properly remanded the case back to Florida’s courts for resolution, rather than halting the recount altogether, but there still would have been no reason for them to issue any sort of clarification on their role or Congress’s; they were appropriately (if poorly) performing their role in arbitrating a legal dispute, and Congress plainly did not have a role to play under the circumstances.
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well I done remembered wrong. Thanks.
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Whenever I teach the US survey (college level) I’m always sure to include this event. I can’t speak to HS, but seems like it’s a surprise to lots of my students.
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One and the same to those folks, one and the same.
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