Oops! No One Told Ted Cruz That Delegates Pick the VP at a Contested Convention (Video)

Cruz/Fiorina is an even bigger disaster than you thought.

By Alexandra Rosenmann

April 29, 2016

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Ted Cruz made headlines this week by announcing his pick for VP—after losing five contests to Trump. But it gets worse. Cruz has been “mathematically eliminated from winning the GOP nomination [outright, and he] acknowledged [last] Wednesday that a contested convention is his only path to the GOP nomination,” the Hill reported. However, the Cruz campaign didn’t seem to read the fine print, which makes the Republican candidate’s announcement even more of a fail.
“At a normal [GOP] convention, the presidential candidates get a roll call vote, and then the VP gets a simple voice vote. But if there’s a contested convention, things are more formal, and more than 2,300 delegates are bound to a presidential candidate for at least one round of voting, for the most part,” explained Gretchen Carlson, host of Fox News’ “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.”
But wait, what about the VP?
“That’s never the case for the VP.” Carlson confirmed. She continued, “All 2,472 delegates are unbound when it comes to nominating a VP—meaning they can vote for whomever they want—and it’s not tied to the presidential pick, so even if Cruz and Fiorina want to run together, one of them could end up on the ticket, leaving the other one behind.”
Well, now we almost want Cruz to get the nomination just so we can see this in action. Almost.
Watch: How is the vice president nominated at a contested convention?