Day Three Of The Republican Convention Got A Little Wild

https://twitter.com/jmsummers/status/755952716174745604

When Harry Enten and I spoke to Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe today, Roe suggested that if Trump lost to Clinton, it would come to be seen as a black swan event and that the Republican Party might return to relatively familiar ground in 2020. Whereas a Trump win in November would be more transformational. One can agree or disagree with Roe’s analytical point. In our view here at FiveThirtyEight, there’s a substantial chance that the Republican Party is forever changed, whether or not Trump wins. But given that Cruz represents the Reagan-esque, movement conservative wing of the GOP, you wonder if Cruz wouldn’t prefer for the party to return to where it was before Trump descended that escalator last June.

It really does feel like the air has been let out of the hall here. Newt Gingrich is speaking, and I can hear a woman speaking in the next section and a few rows behind me. If Cruz’s goal was to disrupt this convention, he achieved it.