By now you've read Part I in our explanation of how a Romney/Kasich ticket could disrupt an electoral majority in November, preventing either Trump or Hillary from being elected and moving on to the "run-off" in the House of Representatives. By way of reminder, the 12th Amendment describes what this process entails for selecting who will be President:

...if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

The second feat of winning the Presidential election in the House of Representatives is also a challenging, unpredictable feat for a Romney/Kasich team, assuming feat #1 is successful—let's now break down the math on what winning in the House could look like:

The House is currently controlled by the Republicans, with 246 seats to the 188 of Democrats (434 total). Let's just assume, worst case, that every sitting Democrat will vote for Hillary. This would mean that the Romney/Kasich ticket would need to convince 218 of the total 246 Republican Representatives to abandon the idea of Donald Trump leading their Grand Old Party and aligning with an independent or new political party (218/434=50.2%)—but that is only if EVERY member of the House is present for the vote. The 12th Amendment is clear that only two-thirds of members must be present for a 'quorum' to exist. This is where Romney's alliance with Speaker Paul Ryan becomes critical, because Speaker Ryan ultimately wields the power to decide when a vote is taken. 
Conceivably, in addition to being the head Romney/Kasich cheerleader and promoting the idea of an independent vote among House members, Speaker Ryan can time the vote to occur when conditions are optimal for a Romney victory. BEST CASE scenario, this would occur when exactly 144 Democrats (or Trump-voting Republicans) are absent (290/434 = 66.8% = Quorom!) Now, Romney needs only 146 votes out of the 290 present to achieve a majority among the Quorom. That's only 59% of the Republican House members and only 33% of The total House. Probably not feasible for a wild card third party "no-name" independent who House members don't know and/or trust—probably not even feasible for John Kasich himself, who by his own accounts was relatively unknown prior to this race. But for Mitt Romney, two-time presidential contender, former Massachusetts Governor and Republican party veteran, to be chosen over Trump by 59% of House Republicans, we think is well within the realm of possibility—especially given the fact that to date Trump has only received an endorsement from a whopping 11 current members of the House.  (For reference, by the end of the 2012 primaries Mitt Romney had received endorsement of 85 sitting members of the House).

Now, here's where the process gets stickier—Vice-President selection. The 12th Amendment describes this process as well:

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

That's right—only the top TWO go into the Vice Presidential run-off in the Senate. Which means that in a Romney/Kasich scenario, chances are Kasich doesn't make it to the final election in the Senate-- they will end up choosing between Hillary's running mate and Trump's. And since the Senate is currently Controlled by Democrats, we can assume that Hillary's running mate would inevitably end up VP in this scenario. So, yes, at the end of this whole scenario we could likely end up with a Republican/Independent President and a Democratic Vice President—something that hasn't happened since 1865 with Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. But this would probably do our Country some good anyway, to see a Republican/Independent President and a Democrat VP cooperate. Congress can't seem to figure that out themselves.

A Romney/Kasich duo has what it takes to pose a plausible (even if it's a long shot) 3rd party run for the White House—not necessarily because of their combined synergy, but because each one brings a specific, calculated key to the equation. Kasich doesn't have the clout among House Republicans to potentially swing a majority vote against the 'party nominee' like Romney does, yet Romney can't get to the final run-off without the critical help of Kasich to take Ohio's 18 electoral votes. So, America needs John Kasich to agree to do the most American thing possible: sacrifice his own interests to preserve the future of the Nation. John Kasich is the Bing Bong to Mitt Romney's Joy (Inside Out spoiler alert!)—Together they get the wagon going fast enough, and just in time Kasich must jump out and let Mitt ride it all the way to the top.


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The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. (emphasis added)    

 We're talking about electoral college votes here, not popular vote.  In other words, if no one candidate receives a majority of electoral college votes (which is 270) on November 8th, then the top THREE electoral candidates go into what is essentially a run-off in the House of Representatives.  What this means is that a 3rd party candidate doesn't need to WIN the general election--that candidate simply needs to disrupt the general election enough to prevent a majority of electoral votes for the other two candidates.  Let's divide this into two separate ideas: First is disrupting the electoral college majority, and second is going on and winning a majority vote in the House of Representatives.  This post will focus on the first point, and we'll follow up with another post on the second.

In order to accomplish the first feat of preventing a majority of electoral votes a dark horse, third party candidate would need to be a strong enough candidate, with a suitable Vice Presidential candidate, to win enough states' electoral college votes to prevent either Trump or Hillary from obtaining 270 electoral votes.  As it is, current polling projections expect it to be a close race in November.  That means that a 3rd party needs only win roughly 30 electoral votes--and they need to pull states almost equally away from Trump and Hillary. That doesn't mean it will be easy-- the last time a 3rd party took more than 30 electoral votes was George Wallace with the American Independent Party in 1968.  Who is the strongest, best-suited presidential duo to accomplish this?  Mitt Romney and John Kasich, President and Vice President.

Mathematically, this is quite doable for a Romney/Kasich ticket.   Obviously, there are thousands of mathematically possible combinations that lead to a disrupted electoral college—we will simply present one of the more plausible cases:  During the primary season Kasich proved that he had overwhelming support in Ohio despite being a long-shot candidate.  He would help the Romney/Kasich ticket take battleground Ohio, which alone is 18 electoral votes.  Ohio went for Obama in 2012, so let's assume those are votes lost for the Democratic ticket.  It is also safe to assume Romney/Kasich would easily win Utah, Idaho, and probably Wyoming based on the overwhelming Republican, Latter-Day Saint population paired with Trump's abysmal performance in those states in the Primaries-- that's an additional 13 electoral votes.  Already at 31 votes, Romney/Kasich ticket is within the realm of disrupting an electoral college majority.  Other viable states for winning a plurality of votes based on Primary outcomes are District of Columbia (3), Kansas (6), Oklahoma (7), Iowa (6), and possibly even Texas (a whopping 38). And let's not forget that Maine and Nebraska split electoral college votes (i.e. not winner-takes-all).  They may pick up a small handful of votes from those states too. Romney/Kasich should have an easier time drawing red states away from Trump; so as long as Florida (29) and a couple other swing states don't ALL swing Democrat, that should do it.

Of course, there is the complication of vote-splitting, which is hard to predict—but so is the appeal of strong, sane, and rational 3rd party candidates when both major party candidates are so disliked. We know that many right-leaning states would would go 3rd party given the chance. The real question is whether some of the left-leaners are really that Ready for Hillary. Could more blue and swing states be won-over than red states compromised by a split? A Romney/Kasich duo, loosed from the shackles of the GOP, would be evaluated based on their own merits, principles, and policies rather than simply their association with the Republican Party at large and its often unpopular reputation—becoming increasingly more palatable to even the bluest of states as we draw nearer to November.  Would a strong, viable 3rd party ticket like Romney/Kasich embolden Bernie Sanders to make a run himself and further dilute the electoral votes?

There remains a lot of uncertainty about this approach, but you can bet that it is being discussed and calculated.  Think about it—Why has Mitt Romney not endorsed any candidate this election cycle?  Why did Kasich unexpectedly drop out of the primaries after vowing to continue until the Republican Convention?  Why is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan so reluctant to support Trump?  Why are so many high-profile Republicans, including past Presidents, not attending the Republican Convention?  The foundation is being laid for the emergence of a new party, and ultimately the demise of the GOP as we know it.  And it's not enough for a new party to simply emerge and draw popular votes (see: Independant (Ross Perot) in 1992, Green Party in 2000, etc.).  The new party (or reformed Republican party) must have enough clout among the prevailing Republican voters to draw a substantial number of electoral votes AND a significant majority of Republican House members with it.  More to come on that topic in Part II...

Donald Trump is a professional salesman, and he is actively doing his absolute best to sell to the American public that he is the undisputed front-runner, the party favorite, the populist leader of the Republican party, and therefore deserves its uncontested support.  When headlines appear that show that Trump wins X Primary with X% votes, for example, it's easy to feel the tug of his compelling sales pitch.  So how much of the population is truly supporting Donald Trump through the nomination process?  I thought we should boil the numbers down to evaluate:

In any given contest, there is a percentage of voters which cast their vote for Trump.  The vote percentage shown (e.g. 45.9% in Nevada Caucus) is the percentage of votes for Trump out of the total votes cast during the Republican Primary or Caucus.  But, it is critical to keep in mind that the voters participating in each Primary or Caucus contest are only a subset of registered Republicans for that particular state*; and registered Republicans are only a subset of all of the Voting-Eligible Population within a given state; and Voting-Eligible Population is only a subset of the Voting Age Population of a given state.  Let's take for example Nevada-- a state that Trump won early on by a surprisingly large margin.  Below is a nested circle diagram which illustrates the point-- the area of each circle represents the subsets of population described above.  Trump's 45.9% victory, when viewed in terms of the total Voting Age Population of Nevada, takes on an entirely new, diminutive context:


Here is a link to a spreadsheet of data and calculations from all of the states which have already held their primary or caucus contests in 2016 (as of 3/28), along with the appropriate statistics of current state population, registered Republican voters, Voting-Eligible Population estimates and Voting-Age Population estimates, and finally the number of Primary/Caucus votes cast in favor of Donald Trump.  From this data we can contrast the difference between A) the % of votes in favor of Trump within the Republican contest, and B) the % of Voting-Eligible Population (from all parties) voting for Trump.

State	% Trump Votes Among Rep. Voters	% of VEP for Trump
Iowa	24.3%	2.0%
New Hampshire	34.9%	9.7%
South Carolina	32.2%	6.5%
Nevada	45.9%	1.8%
Alabama	43.4%	10.3%
Alaska	33.5%	1.4%
Arkansas	32.4%	6.2%
Georgia	38.7%	7.3%
Massachusetts	48.8%	6.3%
Minnesota	36.5%	1.0%
Oklahoma	28.3%	4.7%
Tennessee	38.9%	6.8%
Texas	27.7%	4.4%
Vermont	32.3%	4.0%
Virginia	34.7%	5.9%
Kansas	23.3%	0.8%
Kentucky	35.9%	2.5%
Louisiana	41.4%	3.7%
Maine	32.5%	0.6%
Hawaii	42.4%	0.6%
Idaho	28.1%	5.4%
Michigan	36.6%	6.5%
Mississippi	47.5%	8.8%
District of Columbia	13.8%	0.1%
Florida	45.8%	7.5%
Illinois	41.1%	6.3%
Missouri	40.9%	8.5%
North Carolina	40.2%	6.3%
Ohio	37.4%	8.3%
Arizona	47.1%	5.4%
Utah	14.0%	1.3%
AVERAGE	35.5%	4.9%

What can we take away from the data shown above and from the source data in the spreadsheet?  For one thing, Primary voter turnout rates are still embarrassingly low at appx. 20% of all those who are eligible to vote.  The result of this is that in several states where Trump produced a surprisingly strong win (e.g. Nevada, Hawaii, etc.), this is simply because of abysmally low Republican voter turnout.  Yes, Trump won Hawaii with 42.4% of votes, but among a state with a population over 1 million, Trump only mustered a little over 5,600 votes-- but that was enough to clinch an additional 11 delegates.  Across all 32 contests so far, Trump is garnering less than 5% of votes from all those who would be eligible to vote.  Let me put that another way:  The percentage of voters choosing Trump for President is currently less than the percentage of convicted felons in America.  Is that the least bit distressing for you?  For someone with support from such a small fraction of the population to be on the cusp of being officially nominated for election as President of the United States?

So yes, Donald Trump is currently doing better than other candidates-- but doing better than others doesn't mean you're doing well.  This is one reason why, despite his protestations, a contested Convention may not only be fair but highly appropriate.  Why is Republican voter turnout so low?  What could we do as a Nation to fix this voting system?  Topics for future posts, I confess.  Just keep in mind, the next time you hear vote percentages for a Primary win, that in reality there's much more (or, much less) than meets the eyes behind those numbers.

*Several states do not allow for declaring political party affiliation when registering to vote.

In case you've had your head in the sand for the past several months, it's Primary Election season for the upcoming Presidential Election.  To describe it in game-like terms, states each take a turn having their residents vote for a candidate (Iowa goes first), and based on the voting the state allocates delegates (i.e. "points").  For Republican candidates, the first one to 1237 points wins.  For Democrats, the magic number is 2383.  Each state subscribes to one of two ways of deciding how to allocate delegates to a particular candidate: either by caucus or by primary election.

Now, here's where things get a bit more complicated.  Both Caucuses and Primaries are split into several types: either "Open," "Closed," or some hybrid form of both "Open" and "Closed".  So what's the difference between an Open and a Closed Primary/Caucus?  In an Open Primary or Caucus, any voter (Republican, Democrat, or otherwise) is able and allowed to submit a ballot for any candidate in any party.  Conversely, in a Closed Primary or Caucus, a voter can only cast a ballot for the political party with which he/she is registered.  According to standard Game Theory ideology, each voter would vote for their preferred candidate, and the candidate(s) with the most votes would procure the most delegates, thus reflecting the plurality, if not the majority of the will of the people.  The argument in favor of an Open contest is that Independents, swing-voters, etc. can select whichever candidate among any party whom they prefer.

In a normal election cycle, the difference between Open and Closed systems may be trivial-- but the 2016 election cycle is far from normal.  The Republican Party produced several viable Presidential candidates with a wide range of credentials, backgrounds, and policy positions which may appeal to prospective voters--and then it also produced Donald Trump.  Let's face it: most of the country, Democrats and Republicans alike, acknowledge and understand that Donald Trump is not a viable candidate for the Presidency.  One need look no further than his approval ratings (which are already in the toilet), or worse, how he is getting trounced in national polls against a candidate with a similar approval rating and similarly against a self-declared Socialist-- not to mention these other reasons.  Yet Trump continues to regularly win these contests in both "red" and "blue" states.

What does this have to do with Open Primaries or Caucuses?  Democratic voters participating in these events can choose to follow the standard Game Theory and select the candidate they feel best represents their interests.  Or, they can pick up a Republican ballot instead and do their best to sabotage the Republican nomination process so that the opposing party produces the weakest candidate possible, thereby ensuring that a Democrat ends up in the Oval Office in November.  This would be a compelling strategy under one of two conditions: EITHER the voter has no strong preference between the Democratic candidates and is only focused on a Democratic win in November, OR they live in a state which leans heavily in favor of one Democratic candidate over the other(s), thus effectively invalidating their vote for their own party.

For those who may be thinking, "This never happens"-- it does.  One possible recent example of this is the 2008 Presidential race.  According to exit polls in the New Hampshire Republican primary, candidate Mitt Romney won among registered Republicans, yet John McCain ended up winning the state overall.  According to the same exit poll, John McCain won by a landslide among voters who identified as Liberal.

Could this phenomenon be partly to blame for Donald Trump's supposed "overwhelming" support in the Primary and Caucus contests?  Let's look at the numbers.  The list below are the states which hold an Open or Semi-Open Primary or Caucus, the declared Republican winner, and the winning percentage of votes (as of March 24th):

Alabama	Trump	43.4%
Arkansas	Trump	32.8%
Georgia	Trump	38.8%
Illinois	Trump	38.8%
Michigan	Trump	36.5%
Minnesota	Rubio	36.5%
Mississippi	Trump	47.3%
Missouri	Trump	40.9%
North Carolina	Trump	40.2%
Ohio	Kasich	46.8%
Tennessee	Trump	38.9%
Texas	Cruz	43.8%
Vermont	Trump	32.7%
Virginia	Trump	34.7%

And here's the results of the states which hold Closed contests:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder
DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria (this is literally the textbook definition)

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements). 
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. 
3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions). 
4. Requires excessive admiration. 
5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations. 
6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends. 
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

The following is a list of actual quotes from Mr. Donald J. Trump:

On jobs:
"I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created."

On his personality:
"People say, 'Mr. Trump, you’re not a nice person.' But actually I am."

On ego:
"Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser -- having a healthy ego, or high opinion of yourself, is a real positive in life!"

On his intellect:
"I promise you that I'm much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz -- I mean Jon Stewart @TheDailyShow. Who, by the way, is totally overrated."

"Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault."

On racism:
"I don't have a racist bone in my body."
"I've always had a great relationship with the blacks."

The last thing he apologized for:
"It was too many years ago to remember. I have one of the great memories of all time, but it was too long ago."

On how women perceive him (Trump speaking of himself in 3rd person):
"Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money."

Regarding The Iranian Nuclear Deal:
"I have studied this issue in great detail, greater by far than anyone else."

On his apartment:
"There may be no other apartment in the world like it."
"I show [my] apartment to very few people. Presidents. Kings."

On his books:
"Don't let the brevity of these passages prevent you from savoring the profundity of the advice you are about to receive."

Even Trump's Physician report:
"(Trump) will be healthiest individual ever elected"
(note: we speculate it was written by Trump and simply signed/approved by his doctor)

Got another favorite Trump = Textbook Narcissism quote?  Feel free to add in the comments below!