Faithless Electors V – News from the most significant states.
In Part III, I listed the states in question — specifically states won by Trump, in which state law allows electors to be faithless. In this part, I will review what I could find from a quick news search on the larger states from that list. Looking very, very unlikely.
The electors typically include the top 3-4 state republican party officials, so without the national R. party on board with dissent by electors (Reince Priebus scored a Chief of Staff position), we can forget about dissent in states with just a handful of electoral votes. In larger states, the remaining electors are of course also chosen by the winning party, but individuals could potentially get positions as electors for other reasons (owed favors, etc), simply because there are more “moving parts”.
I searched for any news on the larger states, below:
TX (38)– 1 elector resigned (gets replaced), 1 elector says will vote for a Republican other than Trump (and receives death threats from Trump supporter). State Repub. party appears on board with Trump. Not much on state GOP chair. TX governor Rick Perry scored a cabinet post.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/story/news/local/texas/2016/12/12/texas-electors-unlikely-affect-outcome-race/95360620/
PA (20) – all electors on board with Trump, per phone interviews. State GOP chair is a trustee of U Penn. A couple of the state GOP electors are associated with former PA gov and Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge.
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-pa-trump-unbound-electors-20161211-story.html
GA (16)– 1 elector resigned (gets replaced). interviews with 14 GA electors indicate loyalty. Not getting much out of the bio’s.
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/11/20/georgias-gop-electors-stand-by-donald-trump-amid-pressure/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/baoky-vu-donald-trump-electoral-college-232080
MI (16)– 1 elector receives threats, from Clinton supporter, actually. The state’s party chair, who is also Mitt Romney’s niece, just got named to be the new RNC chairman, so I’m guessing this state’s R party just got a very nice reward.
IN (11)– Interviews suggest electors are on board with Trump, includes state party chair etc. VP-elect Pence is from Indiana.
AZ (11)– 1 elector “reluctant” but will honor commitment. 4 electors, in interviews, say they are entirely unswayed (but in at least one case, are annoyed) by thousands of emails. Also, state party GOP chair Robert Graham was also in the running for that RNC top position that went to the MI person, above. No news articles on what, if anything, he is getting. Can’t draw any insights from wiki bio’s of state party chair etc. McCain who seems to be anti Trump is from AZ, and is one of the prominent Republicans in congress publicly buying into the Russia hacking-the-election-to-help-Trump line. He has struggled against the local Tea party wing within his state’s Republican party.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/electoral-college-effort-stop-trump-231350
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