Based on his current delegate totals and the way he’s polling in states that have yet to vote, it now looks likely that Donald Trump will be selected as the Republican Party’s nominee for president on the first ballot at its July convention. He’s also pretty widely disliked by the general population and trails Hillary Clinton in every head-to-head general-election poll. At this point, though, the Washington Post reports, the kind of Republican figures who’ve been working to defeat Trump for the past six months appear to be coming around to the idea that, like the sweet release of death, Trump’s nomination is truly inevitable.
This is the kind of story that’s sometimes based only on a few quotes and a reporter’s vague feelings about the national mood, but the roster of establishment-type Republicans that the Post’s Philip Rucker cites on the record either expressing their own support for Trump or asserting that they believe he’s won the nomination fight is pretty long:
- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who endorsed Marco Rubio
- A former Colorado party chairman named Dick Wadhams who says “fatigue is probably the perfect description of what people are feeling. … People just want this to be over with.”
- A New Hampshire operative named Mike Dennehy who says Republicans “just want it done” (“It” = Trump’s nomination and/or the blissful feeling of floating into nothingness)
- A California consultant named Reed Galen
- A Georgia consultant named Tom Perdue
- A Florida lobbyist named Brian Ballard
- A Massachusetts Republican National Committee member named Ron Kaufman
- Pennsylvania Rep. Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation Committee
- Florida Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee
- Florida Gov. Rick Scott
That’s a lot of people! Trump 2016! Someday, we will all die.
