Trump after New York: The presumptive nominee -GOP establishment should back, not battle, Donald

By Newt Gingrich – – Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The scale of Donald Trump’s victory in New York turned him from frontrunner into presumptive Republican nominee.

The vehemently anti-Trump faction of the party will reject this conclusion.

The news media will dither and analysts will knit pick.

The pseudo-sophisticated will point to the cleverness of stealing delegates legally pledged to Trump.

It is all baloney.

Trump’s emphasis on the will of the voters will “trump” these arguments and analyses. When one candidate has won the lion’s share of the popular vote—and almost certainly Trump will have won more than his two rivals combined—the Republican base is not going to support overturning that outcome with insider cleverness at local, state or national conventions.

And even those efforts are likely to be moot since Trump seems poised to win the nomination outright.

Let’s start with New York.

As I write, the latest numbers are 89 delegates for Trump, 3 for John Kasich, and zero for Ted Cruz.Let me repeat: The champion of the stop Trump movement just won ZERO delegates.

Ahh, the sophisticates say, but this is Trump’s home state. Of course he won all the delegates. If that is the standard, let’s look at the results in Cruz’s home state.

In the Texas primary on March 1, Cruz got 104 delegates, Trump got 48, Rubio got 3 and Kasich got none. In Cruz’s home state, Trump got nearly one third of the delegates in a four-person race.

One other really big state, Florida, has also had the chance to vote. And what happened there? On March 15, Trumpwon 99 delegates. Cruz, Rubio and Kasich combined won zero.

So in the three biggest states to have voted so far, the delegate count is Trump 236, Cruz 104, and Kasich 3. (California will vote on June 7 and the latest CBS poll shows Trump at 49 percent, Cruz 31 percent, Kasich 16 percent.)

Trump is far ahead in delegates in the three biggest states to have voted.

Of course, Trump’s core argument is not about delegates. It’s about the popular vote.

In Florida, New York, and Texas, Republicans have voted. Roughly 2.4 million voted for Trump, compared to 1.8 million for Cruz and 500,000 for Kasich. In these three biggest states, Trump has attracted more votes than Cruz and Kasichcombined.

All evidence is that California will further widen that margin based on recent polling.

Trump is probably going to win all of New Jersey’s delegates (which is winner-take-all, with poll numbers resembling the results in New York). He’s probably going to win Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland as well (though by a narrower margin) and possibly Rhode Island.

It is likely that Kasich will come in second and Cruz will come in third in all of those states. That could strengthen Kasich enough for him to rival Cruz in California (further widening the “Never Trump” candidate’s gap behind Trump).

Cruz’s best shot to turn the race around may be Indiana. That state could be a legitimate battleground for all three candidates. (Kasich is the governor of Ohio right next door, so he also has a shot at Indiana.)

Cruz may win a few small western states. He may also cleverly keep poaching Trump’s delegates at state conventions in an effort to overturn the popular vote with insider maneuvering.

There are two problems with those strategies.

First, Trump is correct in asserting that a manipulated nomination defying the popular vote would be anathema to the Republican base. It would make Cleveland and the fall campaign chaotic and unmanageable.

Second, Trump is probably going to win the nomination on the first ballot.

Take a clear-eyed look at the numbers. After New York, Trump has 845 delegates. Cruz has 559, and Kasich has 147.

So Trump is 139 delegates ahead of the other two combined.

He is almost 300 delegates ahead of Cruz, his closest rival.

Every analysis of the next few weeks indicates Trump’s margin will widen and he will move steadily closer to 1237. Already, he is only 392 short before any undecided delegates, Rubio delegates, and the like are counted.

These are the numbers of a presumptive nominee, not a front runner. If this were any candidate but Donald Trump, the media would be saying his rivals’ efforts were hopeless and the establishment would be pressuring them to exit the race.

It is time for the GOP establishment to work with this new reality rather than wage war against it.

October 7, 2015
Newt Gingrich

If I were in the House of Representatives today, I would support Kevin McCarthy for Speaker. My choice would not be a close call.

As a member of the California Assembly, Kevin became Minority Leader (the top Republican) after just one term in office. I worked with him at the time and was deeply impressed with his vision of a solutions-oriented, activist conservatism that could grow a majority.

He brought that positive vision to Congress and immediately began to have an impact.

As House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan points out in his well-argued endorsement, Kevin helped eliminate earmarks after Republicans took the majority in 2010. He worked with Chairman Ryan to pass four consecutive balanced budgets. He fought the Senate and President Obama to control spending.

Kevin understands that the most important characteristic of a leader is cheerful persistence. This is especially important for a leader in a body as diverse and complex as the House. He has the energy and the personality to listen carefully to every member.

Speaker John Boehner led the GOP back into the majority in 2010 and then continued to grow the party’s strength so that today Republicans have their largest majority since 1928. Kevin has been a crucial figure in these victories. He has spent countless hours traveling the country to elect Republicans. He has helped recruit, fund, and train the new members. He has also played a key role in helping endangered incumbents survive, which is equally necessary to grow the majority. It will now take all of that commitment and energy to keep and build on the GOP’s historic strength in the House. Kevin has proven that he has those skills and that drive.

Being Speaker of the House is an extraordinarily complicated job. You have to listen to your own members to find a majority for every piece of legislation. You have to deal with the minority (in this case, the Democrats) because you are Speaker of the entire House and not just the leader of your own party. (After all, that’s why there is a Majority Leader–to focus on the Republicans as their advocate.)

You also have to negotiate with the Senate, which is very complex and difficult in its own way, and with an often hostile president.

While doing all of this, you have to deal with a national press corps that is trying to trip you up and emphasize the most trivial and negative stories they can find.

Finally, you have to rally your supporters across the country, recruit new candidates, and work to win elections. In that process, you have to collaborate with the Republican National Committee and whoever emerges as the Republican presidential nominee.

Kevin McCarthy is the one House Republican prepared to do all of these complicated tasks simultaneously.

If I were still in the House, I would enthusiastically support him to be the next Speaker.

From http://www.gingrichproductions.com

Gingrich: GOP establishment should back, not battle, Donald

Trump after New York: The presumptive nominee -GOP establishment should back, not battle, Donald

Newt Gingrich: Kevin McCarthy for Speaker

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