Tag Archives: Louisiana

Crowning Too Early?

By Jim Ellis

May 2, 2016 — Are the pundits who are already making Donald Trump the Republican nominee, and those House members rushing to endorse him, and the others like former House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Peter King (R-NY-2) calling out Sen. Ted Cruz acting too quickly?

It was only two weeks ago when Trump was reeling and people were speculating that he would lose a contested convention to Cruz as early as the second ballot because he had allowed the Texan to out-maneuver him in the delegate selection process. In Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Dakota, Colorado, and other places, pro-Cruz individuals were being elected as convention delegates. Though most would be legally bound to cast a first ballot for Trump, if a deadlocked convention went more than one ballot these delegates could break away and cause the New York real estate mogul to fall.

Then came New York and the eastern regional primary. Though Trump exceeded expectations and delegate quotas, was it really a surprise that he carried the states in his home region? The after-effect has reinvigorated the Trump campaign and helped send Cruz to the ropes.

The results shouldn’t surprise anyone. Trump was always projected to carry the eastern states, and certainly so when Cruz insulted the whole state of New York with his “New York values” comment in an early debate.

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Are Both Sides Rigged?

By Jim Ellis

April 14, 2016 — Earlier in the week, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump charged that some GOP officials were “rigging” the nomination process against him. Now that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is beginning to reap the benefits of his campaign laying the groundwork in key places during the past several months, particularly in unbound delegation states such as Colorado and North Dakota, Trump is finding himself on the short end of the delegate selection process.

Because Colorado did not have a primary or caucus but went only to a state convention, Trump is saying such a move is out of bounds. The North Dakota Republicans did the exact same thing a week earlier, but he didn’t levy the same charges toward the Peace Garden State GOP leaders.

Simultaneously, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign spokesman claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I/D-VT) is trying to “rig” the Democratic system by attempting to convince Super Delegates who have already announced for Clinton to change their minds.

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Trump’s Achilles Heel

By Jim Ellis

April 13, 2016 — Donald Trump’s flap over the Colorado delegation’s action this past Saturday reveals his campaign’s biggest weakness. While he has performed better than any other Republican candidate in attracting votes in the primary/caucus process to date, the Trump organization has paid scant attention to delegate selection mechanics in the various states. Now, the omission is beginning to cost him.

Trump is crying foul because the Colorado Republican Party met in convention instead of scheduling a primary or caucus, but theirs was not a random, or unheard of act. In fact, North Dakota used the same procedure the previous weekend without raising the Trump campaign’s ire.

“Though [Trump] has placed first more often than any other Republican candidate in primaries and a few caucuses, he has still garnered support from just 37 percent of voters casting ballots in a primary or caucus, far from obtaining majority status.”

Colorado Republicans have always employed a nominating convention. Prior to the 1980s, the only ballot access a candidate for any partisan office had was to obtain at least 20 percent of the convention vote. For the past 25-plus years, however, candidates can opt to bypass the convention and directly qualify exclusively through the signature petition process.

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Following Up on the
Big Wisconsin Wins

By Jim Ellis

April 7, 2016 — Both senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Bernie Sanders (I/D-VT) handily exceeded expectations in Wisconsin Tuesday night. Cruz, in particular, had an impressive night, hovering around the 50 percent mark throughout the counting and finished just a point under the majority threshold. Donald Trump notched only 34 percent, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) came up way short with just 14 percent.

Wisconsin is a Winner-Take-All by congressional district state, and it is in the all-important delegate count where Cruz came close to running the table. Except for the two western state congressional districts, 3 (Rep. Ron Kind; D-La Crosse) and 7 (Rep. Sean Duffy; R-Wausau), the Texas lawmaker swept the state including the Madison-anchored 2nd District where Kasich appeared to be favored going into the election. Therefore, Sen. Cruz scored a 36-6 delegate apportionment victory over Trump, with Kasich being shut out.

The result should be seen as a significant setback for Trump, just as it is becoming clear that he will face a serious degradation in delegate support if the convention deadlocks and multiple ballots are required.

Reports emanating from states such as Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Dakota and Arizona suggest that the delegate composition from these places, once the members are released according to their individual state law or party rule, will back away from Trump and head toward Cruz or possibly another candidate if others can be introduced into the process at the convention.

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The Game Within the Game

By Jim Ellis

March 28, 2016 — While the Republican presidential candidates are experiencing a small voting respite – the next GOP primaries are April 5 and 19 (Wisconsin and New York, respectively) – the so-called “game within the game” is getting underway as recent developments in Louisiana illustrate.

The phrase refers to the complicated process of actually choosing individuals to fill the various delegate slots that are awarded to the respective candidates under Republican National Committee allocation procedure. It is here where Sen. Ted Cruz may have a distinct advantage.

Coming from the Louisiana state Republican convention, a similar venue where the respective 56 voting entities ratify their official national delegate slates, the fluid process could actually send a pro-Cruz delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland even though more voters supported Donald Trump.

On March 5, Trump polled 41.4 percent of the statewide vote versus Sen. Cruz’s 37.8 percent. Based upon the state’s delegate apportionment formula that allows candidates to earn a portion of the 25 at-large bound delegates if they exceed 20 percent of the statewide vote, Trump received 13 votes to Cruz’s 12.

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Cruz Gaining Support, Trump Lags;
Louisiana Senate Contenders Jump In

Nov. 30, 2015 — The new Iowa Quinnipiac University poll shows a significant gain for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in anticipation of the Feb. 1 Republican precinct meetings. Dr. Ben Carson recorded a substantial loss in support, while race leader Donald Trump posted an incremental gain.

According to the latest Q-Poll (Nov. 16-22; 600 likely Iowa Republican Caucus attenders), Sen. Cruz attracted an additional 13 percentage points when compared with the university’s Oct. 22 released survey. Their new ballot test finds Trump leading Cruz 25-23 percent, with Dr. Carson slipping to 18 percent (down from 28 percent in October) and Sen. Marco Rubio remaining constant with 13 percent support. Trump gained five percentage points in the last month.

Again we see the familiar separation pattern occurring, as the top four finishers in this poll: Trump, Cruz, Carson, and Rubio, again are firmly distinguishing themselves as the “Front Four”. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is a distant fifth at just five percent. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush drops even lower to four percent.

While Trump continues to lead, though his advantage here is consistently shrinking, he also is tops in another category, which is not good news. A full 30 percent of the sample identified Trump as “the candidate they would definitely not support” in the Iowa Caucus. For a change, and unfortunately for him, Jeb Bush scores high. He is second in this negative category with 21 percent saying he is the one candidate for whom they won’t vote. By contrast, Cruz, Rubio, and Carson score seven, five and four percent figures, respectively, in response to this question.

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Vitter Loses; Won’t Run in 2016

Nov. 24, 2015 — As a myriad of Louisiana gubernatorial polls correctly predicted, state Rep. John Bel Edwards (D) scored a landslide 56-44 percent victory over Sen. David Vitter (R) Saturday night. The result proved a bitter defeat for the Republican after he was cast as a prohibitive favorite when the campaign began.

In his concession speech, the senator confirmed that he will not seek re-election in the 2016 cycle, yielding the sixth open seat US Senate campaign for next year. There was strong speculation when the governor’s campaign began to turn against Vitter that the politically damaged senator would be highly vulnerable if he were to seek a third term after experiencing what would be a crushing defeat. Though the Republicans will now be forced to risk an open seat it is preferable to defending a wounded incumbent.

Saturday’s result was clearly a rejection of Vitter and not necessarily the Republican Party. Despite the Democrats winning at the top of the ticket, Republican lieutenant governor candidate Billy Nungesser, the Plaquemines parish president, recorded his own strong 55-45 percent victory margin against Democratic nominee Kip Holden.

In the double-Republican attorney general’s race, former US Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA-3) unseated incumbent Buddy Caldwell with a similar 55-45 percent spread after strategically positioning himself as the more conservative candidate.

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