Donald Trump has been facing many unfair challenges in his quest for the GOP presidential nomination, from Establishment plots to derail his candidacy to shadowy forces that set the delegate requirement at the “arbitrary number” of 1,237 (also known as math). Now the front-runner has vowed to fight back, after being cruelly robbed of ten delegates thanks to Louisiana’s primary rules.
Trump tweeted on Sunday afternoon:
As explained in a recent Wall Street Journal report, while Trump beat Ted Cruz by 3.6 percentage points in Louisiana, the Texas senator may walk away with ten more delegates. Technically, Trump and Cruz won the same number of delegates, 18 each, but since Marco Rubio dropped out of the race, his delegates are now free agents. They’re expected to back Cruz, along with the state’s five unbound delegates. Cruz supporters also snatched up five of Louisiana’s six spots on the committees that will write the rules of the GOP convention, which could be key in determining the winner of a contested convention.
That certainly sounds insane, but as has been widely discussed in recent weeks, that’s true of America’s entire patchwork of arcane primary rules. Jason Doré, the executive director of the Louisiana GOP, tells the Times-Picayune that the decision to award delegates on a proportional basis was made long before anyone knew Trump was running, and if he has a problem with how Rubio’s delegates are voting, it’s “between Mr. Trump and those guys.” Similarly, who the unbound delegates choose to support is “out of our control.”
Doré said the state party “will be prepared” should Trump sue, but he noted that it’s “unclear” who exactly Trump intends to go after in court.
Of course, a winner like Trump has no use for that kind of logic. Everyone knows America’s primary process isn’t great, and threatening frivolous lawsuits is Trump’s preferred method of fixing things.
