The Independent View: What It Takes to Get the Republican Presidential Nomination

Edward J. Rollins, a veteran of five decades of U.S. politics, ran President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign and served as his White House political director, and managed the first phase of the Ross Perot campaign in 1992.

He wrote an article in Reuters about Trump and what it takes to get the Republican nomination.

He writes:

The presidential race for the Republican nomination is not about polls or a national race. It is a state-by-state contest for 2,470 delegates. To be the party nominee, a candidate must have 50 percent plus 1 of the delegates, 1,236 delegates, to win.

Every one of these delegates is hard-won, and each state’s rules are a little different. This race is wide open. With the addition of super PACs, where candidates can receive unlimited monies, it could drag on until June. The party might even go into the Republican National Convention with a still undecided contest.

Trump has to build a state-of-the-art campaign if he wants to continue to do well and have the possibility of winning the nomination. This is not a reality show. It is a modern, multi-million-dollar campaign with social media, sophisticated, up-to-the-minute positive and negative television spots, policy-development research, opposition research, grass-roots organization, full-scale legal consultation, coalition building and a structured campaign in most of the 50 states.

Donald Trump said that he will spend a billion dollars to win. That sum will guarantee no one will out-spend him. But he needs to build a grass-roots campaign with volunteers. You never have enough volunteers in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. The Iowa caucus is a giant organizational effort in which the winner may need as much the free help as he can get to win. And then the follow-up to win the 99 county conventions and eventually the state convention held many months latter.

The contests in each state are conducted under that state party’s rules. There is also continual oversight from the Republican National Party’s committee rules.

Just to show you the complexity here. There are, for example, 11 states with a winner-take-all provision. Whoever gets the most votes gets all the delegates. A little more than 25 percent of all delegates (668) are decided this way. Take Florida. You get the most votes in Florida, you get all its 99 delegates. The battle should be fierce between the state’s current senator, Marco Rubio, its former governor, Jeb Bush, and maybe Trump.

Ten states assign their delegates proportionally. Meaning a candidate gets a proportion of the delegates depending on how well he or she does. A total of 447 delegates are chosen this way.

Meanwhile, there are 17 states that use a caucus and convention to choose delegates. Iowa is such a state. Even though it’s the first caucus, the convention is held months later and no one selected in the caucus is bound to his or her candidate. Four years ago, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus. He got no delegates. Instead, former Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) won the convention and most of the delegates.

The other states have combinations or other methods entirely. The bottom line is, you better know all the rules and have state and local talent available to help you through the process.

The oldest rule in politics is: When your momentum catches up with your lack of organization, you’re doomed to failure.

Right now, Trump has the momentum. But will he build the organization to have staying power?

First, will he make it to December 2015?

If he does, Texas looms for his first test of his candidacy.

In order to be on the Texas Ballot for the March 1st primary, you must file by Dec 14, 2015. If you are an independent candidate for the Nov, 2016 General, you must also file by Dec 14, 2015. If you are a political party that doesn't choose your candidate by Primary ballot, you must file your party's intent to field a candidate by Dec 14, 2015. If you file for a place on the ballot for Mar 1, 2016, and you do not win the Primary in which you run, you cannot be on the Nov, 2016 ballot. The only candidates that can be on the Nov, 2016 ballot that haven't specifically announced their intent to do so by Dec 14, 2015 are candidates chosen by parties that don't use a Primary for nomination that have filed as a party to field a candidate by Dec 14, 2015 and then, only if the candidate didn't previously lose a primary during the same election cycle. Texas Sore-Loser Law means that Donald Trump will have to make up his mind by Dec 14, 2015 to run as an independent, well before the first primary race. If he files as a GOP candidate, he must win the primary or he cannot be on the Nov, 2016 ballot. This law is designed to prevent just what is being speculated: a candidate holding a political party hostage with the threat of a third party run.