"Majority of the delegates rule" is a marketing trick to sell you the con. Remember, they have an interest in selling that to you because pushing their candidate is a way to further their interests. They want to claim it is legitimate to install Ryan or whoever which does not reflect the will of the voters. Imo most would agree if the race is say, 11 ways and the delegates go 40%/6%/6%/6%/.../6%, the 40 should win. Saying that you got 49% and too bad, Mr 30%, 10%, or 0% gets it because "those are the rules" doesn't change the fact that it is decidedly undemocratic. Intentionally loading the race up with candidates that cant win to gum up the field is also unprecedented and clearly abuse. Under the proposed system by strict interpretation of the rules and with the enormous amount of money required to enter presidential politics, it is nearly impossible for insurgent candidates heavily disliked by the establishment to succeed (especially through $80M of negative ads spent against you so far this cycle, not including anti-Trump ads from HRC's campaign/donors.) Even someone like Trump had to get really lucky, because someone worth ~5B doesn't have the cash. He had to get lucky with earned media: ponying $100M+ on a whim is a tough pill to swallow. The result of supporting such a system is that the establishment will always win. The only hurdle the establishment faces is selling you the legitimacy of this undemocratic process. By perpetuating this myth you further their interests.

The delegate system comes from byzantine days when getting around required horseback and you relied on the agency of your representative. Nowadays people in almost every state express their clear preference for the final candidate. Therefore if for example you are a delegate in a congressional district that voted say, 60% Trump, 20% Cruz, you cannot with a straight face claim to be the will of the people you represent, when on the subsequent ballot you vote for Cruz or worse Ryan. Especially because in many cases the delegate was coerced with $ to switch their vote. At best it should be a "contingent vote" system (like Survivor the TV show) where everyone who did not vote for the top 2 will revote with only the top 2 being choices. If ~90% of the people voted for A or B there should be no opportunity for a no-vote-getting C to emerge victorious. We wouldn't even expect that in the poorest of countries. Worst of all, Kasich/Rubio have asked to have their delegates remain bound. That makes the denominator smaller and even harder to win an outright majority. In a legit system those delegates would be free to make a substantive vote on the first ballot, and in that scenario Trump would have no problem "coalescing a majority", even in the odd case that he started 30 delegates short of the magic number.

Avg of national polls is something close to 50/25/25 recently. If it continues then IMO Trump has a clear mandate from the voters. If for example near the convention, the average of the 5 most recent national polls is 60/20/20, and Trump has say 49% of the delegates, I find it mindboggling to think someone could support the crooked establishment robbing him and the voters in that situation. If it was a closer situation like 38 35 20 or so then I could understand one saying that a wheel candidate is justified, but from how it looks like it will play out, the situation (if it isn't a > 50% lock) will be closer to the 49% one I laid out above.

Nope.

The delegate system from its inception has existed as a bulwark against demagoguery and cults of personality. Prevents someone who has only minority support among voters from thwarting the majority.

That bulwark is about to get a test in three months, and I'm betting it passes that test.

both are true

if Trump nominally gets 48% of the delegates and then loses 1500:600 on a second ballot because his campaign is an incompetent trainwreck, not being an incompetent trainwreck at a key campaign thing is part of the rules of the game

this doesn't actually matter, though (lol nothing matters); what does matter is that the person saying that Cruz won it fair and square looks like a gigantic tool while Trump looks like he was undemocratically robbed, both of which are completely true

"this process is undemocratic, deal with it *puts on sunglasses, law and order music plays*" is a good way for Cruz to win the nom and also simultaneously a good way for nothing good to ever happen to the GOP for the rest of the year, because dealing with it is not the main exactly the opposite theme of the 2016 political process

like, this woman here



is either

a)gonna watch the whole convention live, listen to Ted Cruz congratulating himself as a few hundred people in the crowd below alternate between fistfights and walking out, and then decide "welp, my candidate lost fair and square, time to send Cruz 20 bux and show up in November to vote against Hillary"

or

b)gonna make sure the world burns

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

yes correct, trump slappies will have 4 months worth of non-stop hillary coverage/commercials to get over it. trump supporters are not that bright, overall, and as shown by trump's lack of knowledge on pretty much every single topic, they are easily led by sound bytes.

additionally, a lot of trump's support is old people. old people will be showing up to vote for congress & senators & local sheriff and whatever else, and i doubt the old Trump supporters are gonna check off gary johnson or hillary in any significant numbers. By POE that leaves the Republican candidate.

Republicans have had a huge turnout advantage over Democrats this year. Part of that is likely Trump voters who wouldn't normally have voted, and will likely stay home (like this brainwashed Wice dude). As far as that contingent is concerned, screw 'em. They're not conservatives anyway.

that would make some sense if the race was like 35-30, if Ted Cruz didn't have the charisma of a brick, or if Trump were a gracious loser

as things stand, the four months of non-stop noTrumps coverage have done exactly nothing to Trump, so why would that change for Hillary? especially when Trump calls Cruz a liar every day for four months on every TV show and essentially becomes an unpaid Hillary surrogate, because that's also going to happen

like, Cruz is genuinely dangerous solely because of his organizational abilities, but if we're handicapping the likeliest possible outcome if he does steal this, I'm not seeing a whole lot of consensus building and extending handshakes in your future

Obama approval market seems prone to wild overreactions every time news drops.

Currently on PredictIt, Trump's share price is 51 cents meaning the market believes him to be a 51% favorite. But I'll do ya one better: let's call it 50/50 and I'll give you even money.

Yes paypal. How much? I'm willing to bet up to $200 usd.

Why is Bernie 15% in NY ? The polls all have him getting crushed and registration is closed. What am I missing?

He hasn't closed the gap in the polls as I expected. I got out of that market at a small loss and hopped over to the MOV market. I still think there is a chance he wins NY, but it all depends on youth turnout, that's probably why he's still so high. I wouldn't buy any Hillary shares in that market until after the debate though. I believe there's been a Bernie bump after every debate. Of course, I was wrong on my call about Bernie shares going up above 16c as well . Expected there to be a single digit poll by now.

think the entire new york market has been propped up (remember it used to trade at 70/30) by people thinking they could find bernie supporters to sell it to at a higher price

i also think that the debate is the last event that could do anything, and the price will collapse over the next 2-3 hours

NOPE

I bet "no" on Panama Papers in the debate, not sure why that was trading at 50/50

Yep.

Since yesterday, his share has jumped to 57cents but I'll still offer him to you at 50 cents. However, my limit has decreased to $150.

Yep. My strategy has basically been take a couple positions early in the week to ride out and then trade in and out of others as major moves happen.

Went deep on 3 and 4 brackets this Monday and then tried to ride a few peaks in 2 and 5. Did much better on 5 than 2, and got out of 3 in time for 4 to make a healthy profit for the week.

This is becoming an unhealthy obsession.

@Alex Wice -- Now he's at 60 cents and "Yes Brokered Convention" is down to 56cents, so my 50/50 offer is off the table. You should have acted!

I've been very busy and haven't even checked why his share rose (I guess there was a recent primary and he got closer to the magic number of delegates), so at the moment I'm not as eager to bet against him until I catch up on news. However, I wanna recover the money I'm about to lose to Domer lol, so for now, how about...

I'll give you Trump at 55 cents. I'll risk at most $45 (which would require you to put up $55). Act now before his shares jump again!

trump nom is at 61; 1st ballot win is at 41

smh

1st ballot win has been steadily trailing Trump by around 20 points. I think when Trump hit his low at Wisconsin, it was like 40/20 as opposed to 60/40 now.

Hillary's odds to be president/party to win WH-Dems are at election highs. Becoming more of a formality each passing day like it was from the beginning.

PredictIt has a 1st ballot win at 50% because that's what Contested Convention No is at. Trump 1237+ is more than that and it should be more than that because the AP's delegate tracker won't necessarily account for every delegate.

if Trump gets screwed over and runs as independent, there's a not a very small chance Bernie does the same imo

Putting down $$$ based on Bernie dropping out PDQ, including some money on Hillary in Oregon at 22.

both would have serious ballot issues of getting on the ballot, and also expensive legal challenges to sore loser laws

sore loser laws are aimed to prevent the "do over" scenario of running independent

Sorry I didn't open this thread or I would have bet

If anyone would like live betting against Trump you can skype me at: alexwice for a quote. Willing to take inf action, willing to escrow.