Until that happens, the party can change rules on a whim.
It’s not that simple, really. There are formalized procedures now and any campaign and its candidate would be able to sue (successfully, most likely) that they reasonably relied upon the established and adopted procedures in place at the time of the contests and therefore those procedures may not be changed.
My point was that if anything happened to make Trump ineligible, even if he had amassed the most delegates up until that time, the party would have leeway to release those delegates before the convention. At no point would they be stuck with a candidate who is ineligible because he is incarcerated/insurrectionist/deceased. Trump wouldn’t be able to sue over that.
But if that happened after the convention, then the GOP might not have a choice but to keep his name on the ballot anyway.
So, normally you’d be right. However, the party has changed so many rules to bind delegates to a candidate and give all delegates of a state to anyone with 51% of the vote that they are in completely uncharted territory. We’re not sure what would happen if Trump dies after getting enough delegates to lock up the nomination or (worse case scenario for the GOP) he dies after becoming the nominee.
It’s honestly fucking bonkers the way they’ve changed the rules and provided for no alternative.
It’s not that simple, really. There are formalized procedures now and any campaign and its candidate would be able to sue (successfully, most likely) that they reasonably relied upon the established and adopted procedures in place at the time of the contests and therefore those procedures may not be changed.
My point was that if anything happened to make Trump ineligible, even if he had amassed the most delegates up until that time, the party would have leeway to release those delegates before the convention. At no point would they be stuck with a candidate who is ineligible because he is incarcerated/insurrectionist/deceased. Trump wouldn’t be able to sue over that.
But if that happened after the convention, then the GOP might not have a choice but to keep his name on the ballot anyway.
So, normally you’d be right. However, the party has changed so many rules to bind delegates to a candidate and give all delegates of a state to anyone with 51% of the vote that they are in completely uncharted territory. We’re not sure what would happen if Trump dies after getting enough delegates to lock up the nomination or (worse case scenario for the GOP) he dies after becoming the nominee.
It’s honestly fucking bonkers the way they’ve changed the rules and provided for no alternative.