Anti-Trump forces aren’t giving up, but the #NeverTrump movement met with resistance at state level conventions this weekend. Some party leaders, desperate to prevent Trump from the nomination, are looking in some unexpected places (like ABC’s Shark Tank) for a third party savior.
Eleven states held conventions on Saturday to determine delegate slates for the Republican National Convention, but while #NeverTrump activists made an effort at each event, party leaders shut down all 11 mutinies in a veritable #NeverTrump bloodbath. According to POLITICO, state-level Republican party leaders were pushing a message of unity, and state delegates were expected to comply, whether by choice, or by edict.
Trump opponents lost clout in Maryland, where top GOP officials were booted in favor of Trump friend David Bossie. Arkansas’s delegate grouping is now almost exclusively pro-Trump. Delegates in Oklahoma, Montana and Wisconsin found themselves confronted with pro-Trump messaging. Their argument was that the presumptive Republican nominee might be problematic, but Hillary Clinton would be “far, far worse.” Ted Cruz loyalists even failed to make much of a difference in his home state of Texas: pro-unity forces, including former Gov. Rick Perry, who endorsed Trump last week, topped the ticket.
But while Trump was making inroads with movement conservatives, there were still some party leaders looking for a last minute savior. Ben Sasse is resisting the call to a third party run (and the convention in his state, Nebraska, passed a resolution chastising him for his #NeverTrump position). John Kasich, meanwhile, is happily home in Ohio. With those more obvious avenues now cut off, #NeverTrump leader Mitt Romney is reportedly trying to recruit tech billionaire Mark Cuban.
Apparently, the theory is that it would take a reality television star to defeat a reality television star. Or that an embattled real estate investment mogul wouldn’t make it out of the “shark tank.”
Cuban considers himself a libertarian, though likes the “welfare state” too much to face off against any libertarian candidates for that party’s nomination. And while he says he “belongs more” in the Republican party, his domestic policy, at least, is decidedly moderate. That means, he’s basically Donald Trump with a different haircut and a less ostentatious private plane (he even spoke fondly of the Republican frontrunner and mused about being a potential Veep last summer), so even with Cuban, technically the Republican party would just be trading one ill-tempered billionaire front-runner for another.
But it must be good news for #NeverTrump, at least, that Romney’s team considered a business-oriented reality television star and hasn’t yet resorted to Kanye West.
Regardless, this may be the end of the road for any organized opposition to Trump. The convention is only a couple of months away, and Trump is starting to fundraise for the final push. It may be time for the party to come to terms with reality—even if it has a decidedly Trumpian flair.