{"id":11524,"date":"2016-04-11T15:06:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T21:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11524"},"modified":"2016-04-11T15:06:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T21:06:35","slug":"june-7-primary-gives-state-gop-a-chance-to-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/04\/june-7-primary-gives-state-gop-a-chance-to-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"June 7 primary gives state GOP a chance to matter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Trio\"<\/a>

hotos courtesy Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr.<\/p>

We presume you know who these three are by now.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor\u2019s Note<\/strong>: This is the first of two stories looking at the 2016 primary race ahead of Montana\u2019s June 7 primary election. On Tuesday we\u2019ll look at the Democratic race.)<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2008, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton nearly deadlocked in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Montana voters headed to the polls on June 3 not knowing who the party\u2019s nominee would be.<\/p>\n

It was an exciting time for Montana Democrats because the state\u2019s June primary election is usually too late in the nominating process to have an impact on the outcome. The presidential nominees are usually decided long before voters here get a chance to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

But for the second time in just eight years Montana will see presidential campaigns come to the treasure state.<\/p>\n

This year it\u2019s Montana Republicans who are most looking to June 7 for a chance to have a say in the process.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the battle for the GOP nomination between front-runner Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich probably won\u2019t be decided before the July 18 Republican National Convention <\/a>in Cleveland, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Though Trump has a commanding lead in the GOP delegate count, many political observers believe he\u2019ll have a difficult time picking up enough delegates in the remaining primary contests to get to the 1,237 he needs to secure his party\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n

That means Montana could play an important role in the final outcome of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Trump\u2019s] shortfall in Wisconsin leaves it pretty tough for him to get to a majority of the delegates,\u201d said Geoffrey Skelley, an associate editor for Sabato\u2019s Crystal Ball<\/a> at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>As June 7 approaches, Skelley said, the 27 delegates up for grabs in Montana\u2019s GOP primary could be vital to choosing the nominee.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontana Republicans are in a much better position to have an impact on the nomination process this year,\u201d Skelley said. \u201cThe only way Trump can reach 1,237 delegates is on June 7. Everyone will be paying a lot of attention to California, but the 27 delegates in Montana are no laughing matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Essmann<\/a>, chairman of the Montana Republican Party, said voters here are excited to have a chance to participate in a meaningful way for the first time in 40 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll play a role, one way or another,\u201d Essmann said.<\/p>\n

Montana\u2019s delegate convention\u2014where the party faithful gather to pick the 27 individuals who will represent the state at the national convention in Cleveland\u2014takes place May 14 in Billings.<\/p>\n

According to state party rules, the 27 GOP delegates elected at the state convention are bound to the winner of Montana\u2019s June 7 primary and must vote for that candidate on the first ballot at the national convention. However, if the winner of Montana\u2019s primary election doesn\u2019t end up with enough delegates to get to 1,237 and win the nomination on the first ballot, then Montana\u2019s delegates are released and can vote for the candidate of their choosing on subsequent ballots.<\/p>\n

If the national GOP convention becomes contested<\/a>, then the political allegiance of delegates becomes very important, Skelley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment you get to a second ballot, a huge number of delegates are freed up and can vote their personal feelings on the matter,\u201d Skelley said. \u201cTed Cruz is almost surely making the most progress on this, based on everything I\u2019ve read, to get double-agent delegates.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least two of the GOP presidential candidates, Cruz and Kasich, have campaigns on the ground in Montana working to get their supporters elected as delegates to the national convention.<\/p>\n

Essmann said he is not aware of an active pro-Trump campaign working in Montana.<\/p>\n

Skelley said given what\u2019s at stake at the national convention this year, he doesn\u2019t expect Montana to be a \u201cflyover state\u201d for GOP candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontana is very much the kind of state Ted Cruz should do well in,\u201d Skelley said. \u201cGiven where he\u2019s been successful so far geographically, I would definitely expect to see him there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skelley said he also wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see Trump make a few stops in Big Sky Country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to guess what Trump is going to do because he\u2019s so difficult to predict. For sure I\u2019d be shocked if Cruz didn\u2019t make a stop in Montana,\u201d Skelley said.<\/p>\n

Essmann said he thinks it\u2019s far too early to predict what will happen at the national convention. Essmann said it all comes down to who ends up on the rules committee and what rules they set for this year\u2019s convention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it convenes the most important vote will be the first vote, which will adopt the temporary rules of the convention,\u201d Essmann said. \u201cAt this point anyone who says \u2018this is going to happen or that is going to happen\u2019 is hazarding a guess because nobody knows the rules yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essmann, one of Montana\u2019s three \u201cautomatic delegates,\u201d said he hopes to be on that committee.<\/p>\n

Essmann, who served as president of the Montana Senate during an exceptionally contentious 2013 legislative session, said he has \u201ca lot of interest in rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of experience with rules, especially executing them under times of stress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Montana Free Press is a statewide, independent, nonprofit source for in-depth Montana news, information and analysis. Visit montanafreepress.org<\/a> for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This is the first of two stories looking at the 2016 primary race ahead of Montana\u2019s June 7 primary election. On Tuesday we\u2019ll look at the Democratic race.) In 2008, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton nearly deadlocked in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Montana voters headed to the polls on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":11525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[212,2853,4180,1428,1640,2018,3786,1674],"class_list":["post-11524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-donald-trump","tag-geoffrey-skelley","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jeff-essmann","tag-john-kasich","tag-republican-primary","tag-ted-cruz","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}