Dec. 13, 2016

GOP effort makes sure Republican electors don't go wobbly on Trump.

The Republican National Committee is overseeing an expansive whip operation designed to lock down Donald Trump’s Electoral College majority and ensure that the 306 Republican electors cast their votes for the president-elect.

Two RNC sources familiar with the effort said the committee — with the assistance of state Republican parties and the Trump campaign — have been in touch with most of the GOP electors multiple times, and has concluded that only one is a risk to cast a vote against Trump on Dec. 19, when the Electoral College meets.

The RNC’s elector head count, the sources emphasized, is standard practice in presidential election years. But this year it also serves as an early-warning system for potentially wayward GOP electors amid an intense push by Democratic electors to convince 37 of their Republican counterparts to jump ship. The Democrats are hoping that dozens of GOP electors — many of whom were picked at local conventions and party meetings dominated by Trump’s opponents — are already primed to resist Trump.

“The state Republican parties in the states that went for Trump are heavily invested in this process,” said one of the RNC sources. “It’s a matter of personal pride for a state party chairman and a state party to ensure that all the electors that their people elected vote, and vote in the manner in which they’re supposed to.”

State party leaders, the RNC sources said, are in frequent communication with electors through phone calls and letters. They have identified multiple points of contact for the GOP electors and also monitor their social media, all to guard against the prospect of electors voting for someone other than Trump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arizona GOP Chairman Robert Graham confirmed that, along with RNC and Trump campaign officials, he’s been in contact with the state’s 11 Republican electors and is confident that all will back Trump. That kind of due diligence is critical, he said, as Democrats lobby Republican electors to bail on Trump.

“I think it’s a smart thing for the RNC and Trump campaign to do just to get a feel for it,” he said. “It’s good strategic cooperation. I think right now, they’re getting a pretty consistent message back from the states that everything’s good.”

Several Republican electors contacted by POLITICO reported receiving calls or letters from their state parties reminding them of their duties, as well as outreach from Trump campaign officials intended to ensure they understood their logistical responsibilities.

Jim Rhoades, a Michigan Republican elector, said he called the state party himself — no outreach was necessary because he’s a solidly pro-Trump vote.

“I wouldn’t expect them to [call],” he said. “They know where I stand, I don’t think that they’re going to concern themselves with me.”

Many electors, including Rhoades, have reported receiving thousands of emails a day from people attempting to convince them to reject Trump.

To date, just one Republican — Chris Suprun of Texas — has publicly revealed an intention to cast a vote for someone other than Trump.

Trump won the popular vote in states that include 306 electoral votes. If 37 Republican electors rejected him, he’d fall below the 270-vote threshold necessary to become president, sending the election to the House of Representatives for a January vote.

The anti-Trump group of Democratic electors has sought to forge a consensus on an alternative candidate who would be agreeable to GOP electors, and signaled last week they were coalescing behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich as the most broadly acceptable choice. Kasich, however, said last Tuesday that electors should not vote for him.

Leaders of that faction, known as the "Hamilton electors," acknowledge their chances are slim. One reason is that numerous GOP electors who openly criticized Trump during the campaign have said they will nevertheless cast their votes for him. Among those Republicans are erstwhile Trump critics like Peter Greathouse in Utah, Jim Skaggs in Kentucky, Jane Lynch in Arizona and Charlie Potts in Oklahoma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I would prefer that another person had been nominated by the Republican Party and had won the election, but am I going to go against 14 million [primary voters] who voted for Trump?” Potts said. “And am I going to vote against all the people in Oklahoma who voted two-to-one for Trump? No, that’s just stupid.”

Potts noted that his home state, Oklahoma, makes it a misdemeanor to oppose the statewide popular vote winner — a crime he doesn’t want to commit. But even if he believed that those laws can’t be enforced — as anti-Trump Democratic electors are arguing in lawsuits filed in three states — it would take a far more flawed candidate than Trump to convince him to disenfranchise Oklahoma’s voters.

“Let’s say that somehow the American people nominated a guy who had murdered 47 people, carved ’em all up and put ’em in a ditch and hadn’t been caught yet, and he got nominated for president,” Potts said. “Well, you know, then I might change my mind.”

Skaggs, the Kentucky elector, told POLITICO recently that he’d resign if he felt compelled to oppose Trump, but still intends to cast his vote in support of the GOP nominee.

Utah’s Greathouse has pointed to his state’s law, which binds electors to support the candidate who won the statewide popular vote, as the most prominent reason he won’t consider voting for someone other than Trump. Similar laws exist in 29 states, including 14 where Trump won.

The penalties for violating these laws vary widely, with some states carrying no penalty at all, some issuing modest fines, and some requiring immediate replacement of electors. One state, New Mexico, treats “faithless” electoral votes as felonies.

“Since we cannot vote for another individual by law, we are not even considering it as an option,” Greathouse said in an email.

Aside from the laws designed to rein in “faithless electors,” the forces arrayed against an Electoral College revolt are formidable. The Republican electors hail from the states were Trump won the popular vote and, in interviews, many said rejecting the will of the voters in their state would be unthinkable. Most are also longtime party loyalists, selected by state GOP leaders for the sole purpose of confirming Trump’s election, which means violating that expectation would all but assure permanent excommunication from the party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Convincing anti-Trump Republicans to withstand pressure and remain on the Electoral College for the purpose of voting against Trump has proven difficult. Aside from Suprun, there are two additional Republican electors who have strongly suggested they wouldn’t vote for Trump. But those two electors, Art Sisneros of Texas and Baoky Vu of Georgia, are promising to resign and let pro-Trump electors replace them on Dec. 19.

Most early reports indicated that Vu and Sisneros had already resigned because they issued statements indicating their intention to do so. But, in a quirk of the long-overlooked Electoral College rules, there is no mechanism for them to quit until the day of the vote. On that day, if they choose to stay home, the remaining electors will vote to replace them with alternates. In the meantime, anti-Trump electors and their allies have been pleading with both men to change their minds and vote against Trump.

Vu and Sisneros told POLITICO they still intend to quit.

“Technically I am still the elector,” Sisneros said. “However, I will not be changing my mind.”