This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on April 14, 2016 Maybe I am all wet, but I remain convinced that the first ballot at the Republican National Convention is a do-or-die situation for Donald Trump—and the latter is more likely. Delegates arriving in Cleveland for the July 18 convention will either be pro-Trump or anti-Trump. There is time between the last round of five primaries on June 7 and the beginning of the convention for him to add a few delegates to his total, but if he hasn’t reached 1,237 on the first ballot, increasing shares of delegates become unbound and there is strong reason to believe that quite a few “Trump delegates” were placed there by state parties or through a process that he did not control. In short, there are delegates in the Trump camp that are not true Trumpeteers. On second, third, and subsequent ballots, these delegates gain free-agent status and that can only be bad news for Trump. That’s the price you pay when you don’t get serious about putting together a real campaign until
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