Marco Rubio convinces no pundits to rally around Trump.

This Week’s Conservative Pundit Tracker: Marco Rubio Changes Zero Minds

This Week’s Conservative Pundit Tracker: Marco Rubio Changes Zero Minds

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May 27 2016 4:41 PM

This Week’s Conservative Pundit Tracker: The Trump Clinched Edition

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Donald Trump clinched the GOP nomination this week, picking up enough unbound delegates to cross the magical barrier of 1,237 that establishment types and Trump critics hoped he’d never reach. But it was rather anti-climactic. Our pundits this week, frankly, were more interested in the State Department’s report on Hillary Clinton’s email practices—because nothing cures the gloom that comes with hating your party’s nominee more than a little schadenfreude.

Also this week: No one in the #NeverTrump crowd was swayed by Marco Rubio’s offer to release his delegates to Trump. Ben Shapiro put it succinctly: “I mean, come on dude.” Many have continued to call on Mitt Romney to make a third-party run. Ross Douthat thinks even a loss would embellish Romney’s legacy, while the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin called Romney “a composite of Albert Schweitzer and Winston Churchill compared with Trump or Clinton.”

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While Trump didn’t outright win over any of our holdouts, he also didn’t do anything egregious enough to lose his few supporters. As Dennis Prager wrote: “I am not interested in moral purity. I am interested in defeating the left and its party, the Democratic Party.” Is Rod Dreher, who earlier said Trump-Clinton would be worse than choosing between David Duke and Edwin Edwards in Louisiana, softening on Trump? We’re calling him “inscrutable” for now.

Well, then, on to the tracker! Each week we’re publishing a new chart showing where our group of 25 right-wing pundits stand on the question of Trump, and you’ll be able to look back at past weeks to see if minds are changing. Our categories are “Voting Trump,” “Voting Clinton,” “Not Voting,” “Someone Else,” and “Inscrutable.” Someone else means either a third party candidate or a write-in. Inscrutable includes pundits who have voiced opposition to both Trump and Clinton, but are otherwise undecided, and those who are sharply critical of Trump but haven’t stated a preferred alternative. Click on a pundit’s head to see what he or she has said about the election this week. (If someone doesn’t write or speak or tweet—crazy, but possible— in a given week, we’ll assume they are “thinking…” Also: We are scouring the internet obsessively, but it’s a big place and it’s possible someone will say something that we miss. We are confident you’ll let us know in comments if so!)

Will the Inscrutables pull it together come November? Will anyone else jump on the Hillary train? Will more pundits coalesce around a third-party candidate, perhaps after this weekend’s Libertarian convention? Or will everyone eventually fall into line for Trump between now and Election Day? Keep an eye on this weekly tracker to find out.

Rachael Larimore is the online managing editor of the Weekly Standard and a former Slate senior editor.

Lakshmi Varanasi is a Slate intern.

Andrew Kahn is Slate’s assistant interactives editor. Follow him on Twitter.

Chris Kirk is a web developer at New York magazine and Slate’s former interactives editor. Follow him on Twitter.

Holly Allen is a Slate web designer.