--- title: Republicans Aim for Convention Challenge to Trump or Cruz description: "Trump has proven he has staying power with actual voters" canonical: https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-18T16:29:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:41:12.834Z article:section: Politics og:title: Republicans Aim for Convention Challenge to Trump or Cruz og:description: "Trump has proven he has staying power with actual voters" og:url: https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3d513e6090ed7b53/69887d9c428a9e8439cd1647/trump-cruz-bush-gop-debate-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: GOP 2016 Debate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Republicans Aim for Convention Challenge to Trump or Cruz twitter:description: "Trump has proven he has staying power with actual voters" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3d513e6090ed7b53/69887d9c428a9e8439cd1647/trump-cruz-bush-gop-debate-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Republican Insiders Plan for a Convention Fight Against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. Readers can join any of them at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=87807331-6391-4d66-8154-17dfbcb9c0d5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### The seven newsletters | Newsletter | Covers | Frequency | | --- | --- | --- | | The Brief | The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors | Daily | | Inside TIME | A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | | Health Matters | The latest health news and expert advice on living well | Weekdays | | Worth Your Time | A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more | Weekly | | D.C. Brief | Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington | Twice a week | | Future Proof | Making sense of the climate and energy economy | Friday (1x per week) | | In the Loop | Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution | Tuesday and Friday (2x per week) | Source: TIME, August 2026. ### Key data points | Metric | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Engaged newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ readers | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletters published | 7 | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost to readers | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Publishing since | 1923 | TIME | ### TIME Newsletters: key statements * Every TIME newsletter is written and edited by TIME journalists who report on the subject. None is generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923. Its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting, so readers can trust what they read. * All seven newsletters are free. Readers pick the ones they want at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=87807331-6391-4d66-8154-17dfbcb9c0d5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). * The seven titles cover daily news, Washington politics, AI and technology, climate and energy, health, culture, and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/subscribe?i=87807331-6391-4d66-8154-17dfbcb9c0d5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What newsletters does TIME publish? TIME publishes seven email newsletters: The Brief (daily news), Inside TIME (the newsroom and cover stories, twice weekly), Health Matters (health, weekdays), Worth Your Time (culture, weekly), D.C. Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=87807331-6391-4d66-8154-17dfbcb9c0d5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch 7 Controversial Presidential Campaign Ads [Watch (HLS stream): Watch 7 Controversial Presidential Campaign Ads](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mzDbSMCA.m3u8) (2:04)  _Published 2016-01-07_ by [Zeke J Miller / Greenville, S.C.](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke J Miller / Greenville, S.C. Feb 18, 2016 4:29 PM UTC by [Zeke J Miller / Greenville, S.C.](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke J Miller / Greenville, S.C. Feb 18, 2016 4:29 PM UTC For all the jostling and jockeying taking place in [South Carolina](http://time.com/4224735/jeb-bush-south-carolina-george-w-bush/) ahead of this weekend’s Republican primary, little of it will be decisive. If anything, the outcome Saturday night only stands to muddy an already messy contest to lead a deeply fractured Republican Party. Losers may not be forced to leave the race, and the still-uncertain winner will leave the state with nothing guaranteed. The growing consensus among many senior Republicans is that there are three likely outcomes facing Republicans. [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4228613/donald-trump-political-attacks-msnbc/) could win enough delegates to be the nominee. [Ted Cruz](http://time.com/4226362/donald-trump-ted-cruz-coburn-lying/) could do the same. Or no candidate emerges from the final primaries on June 7 with the required 1,237 delegates to win when the intra-party convention starts in Cleveland. That means the remaining candidates with a claim to party establishment backing—Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—see their chances for winning the nomination before the July convention dwindling. National and early-state polls have shown Trump and Cruz polling with a combined share of more than half of party voters. The also-rans do not have a clear path, barring a sudden collapse in support for Trump or Cruz, to cobble together sufficient support to put up a roadblock to the outsiders’ aggressions, even if two of the candidates agreed to drop out to unite behind the third. **Read More**: [Donald Trump’s ‘Lizard Brain’ ](http://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/) This uncertainty is informing strategy, with candidates and operatives plotting courses deep into the calendar in hopes of picking up as many delegates as possible. Until March 15, every state awards delegates using some form of proportional allocation, meaning there are multiple winners for each contest. But on that date, Florida and Ohio vote in the first true winner-take-all races, which are likely to favor the home-state favorite and establishment candidates, though Trump now leads the Florida polls by a significant margin. That’s why Bush, Rubio and Kasich are all looking forward to moment when they can keep campaigning but still sleep in their own beds. From a delegate perspective, the race is still a tossup. Just 2% of the 2,472 convention delegates have been awarded in Iowa and New Hampshire. The rewards have been little more than headlines. What’s changed, strategists say, is the realization that Cruz and Trump support is not fading after Iowa. “Trump has proven he has staying power with actual voters, and Cruz is about to hit his fertile ground,” said one campaign strategist. On March 1, 13 states will hold primaries to award 571 delegates, including Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama. They are states where Cruz is expected to perform well, where Trump, meanwhile, has led Massachusetts polls, and is expected to fare well in Vermont. The nationalization of the race after Saturday’s primary in South Carolina will, in strategists’ view, continue the trend, as it has in recent contests. “If they’re all getting delegates then no one is going to get the required delegates and you’re going to have a contested convention,” says GOP lawyer and RNC rules guru Ben Ginsberg. Welcome to a nominee decided by food fight. **Read More**: [Cruz and Rubio Fight Turns Personal in South Carolina ](http://time.com/4227499/ted-cruz-marco-rubio-south-carolina-campaign/) One scenario for the establishment lane is for a single establishment candidate to emerge after March 1—with Rubio, Bush or Kasich suspending their campaigns. But Jeb Bush had promised he’s “in it for the long haul.” Current polls suggest Rubio will beat both of them in South Carolina. Kasich is convinced Ohio, the swingiest of swing states, will have his back. Kasich has left behind the traditional campaign map, escaping South Carolina for a two-day jaunt to Michigan (voting March 8), and plans to spend primary day in Vermont and Massachusetts (both voting March 1). The three proportional-voting states offer a better chance at picking up delegates and keeping his campaign in the mix until the Ohio Primary on March 15, when he stands the opportunity to pick up all 66 delegates. In South Carolina, Kasich hopes to play the role of spoiler, keeping establishment support from consolidating around either Bush or Rubio. Another scenario is for Bush, Kasich and Rubio to stay in the race, dividing up the vote that does not go to Trump and Cruz. In this scenario, they could collectively gather enough delegates to deny Cruz or Trump the nomination at the convention. “The way I look at it, maybe it’s a rationalization, but as long as they pull roughly a third of the vote between them, it’s the same result as if one of them was there,” said Ginsberg, who worked for Mitt Romney and won George W. Bush’s 2000 recount fight at the Supreme Court. “Maybe better,” he added, suggesting that combined they appeal to more voters than just one would. If no candidate wins a majority of the delegate votes on the first ballot at the convention, party rules allow most of the delegates to change their vote to a different candidate, possibly allowing for a nominee to emerge who received less popular support in primaries and caucuses. The final rules for this battle will be set by the delegates themselves in Cleveland. For their part, both Cruz and Trump say they are confident that they will win the nomination outright. And Cruz, rival campaigns contend, “will fight to convention no matter what,” even if it’s not mathematically possible for him to win. For his part, Cruz’s campaign is fine with the also-rans still running. “This is a two-man race, and the other guys are fighting for scraps,” one senior adviser to Cruz said. “If they keep fighting each other with quickly emptying war chests, that leaves to two of us fighting over who is an actual conservative. And, forgive me, I like our odds.” ## Transcript [00:00] It's not surprising when presidential campaigns and their [00:02] supporters go negative. This another example of the lack of [00:06] seriousness. One republican doesn't get it, Rand Paul. But [00:10] controversial ads can backfire too. Here's a look at seven [00:13] from past elections. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [00:17] Lyndon Johnson's 1964 daisy ad set the gold standard for [00:19] attacks by By suggesting his opponent, [00:23] Barry Goldwater, would start a nuclear war. [ SOUND ] [00:33] [ MUSIC ] Richard Nixon's 1968 convention ad was [00:40] much tamer. But viewers complained when it ran during a [00:43] comedy show. [ SOUND ] Many democrats cried foul over [00:46] this 1988 ad for George H. W. Bush for playing into racial [00:46] fears. One William Horton who murdered a boy in a robbery [00:48] stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence Horton [00:52] received 10 weekend passes from prison, Horton fled [00:55] kidnapped a young couple stabbing the man and [00:57] repeatedly raping his girlfriend. George W. Bush's 2004 ad [00:59] drew complaints from relatives of September 11th victims [01:00] for using images- Some challenges we've seen before, [01:04] and some Images from the attack. If you have any question [01:08] about what John Kerry's made of, just spend three minutes [01:11] with the men who served with him. Many veterans called [01:14] this 2004 ad from an outside group distasteful. John Kerry [01:19] has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam. He [01:22] is lying about his record. Is he ready to lead? John [01:25] McCain's 2008 ad compared Barack Obama to celebrities [01:28] like Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. He's the biggest [01:30] celebrity in the world. Obama, Obama. When Mitt [01:34] Romney and Bain closed the plan I lost my healthcare, a [01:37] short time after that my wife became ill. [ UNKNOWN ] [01:40] criticized an outside group's 2012 ad For appearing to [01:44] blame Mitt Romney, for a woman's death from cancer. And [01:46] I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted [01:50] for pneumonia and that's when they found the cancer, and [01:52] by then, it was stage 4. Negative ads don't always work, but [01:56] when they do, they make history. [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/"},"headline":"Republican Insiders Plan for a Convention Fight Against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz","datePublished":"2016-02-18T16:29:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:41:12.834Z","description":"\"Trump has proven he has staying power with actual voters\"","url":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/","keywords":["republicans","Sen. Marco Rubio","ted cruz","jeb bush","Donald Trump","2016 Campaign","john kasich","South Carolina"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3d513e6090ed7b53/69887d9c428a9e8439cd1647/trump-cruz-bush-gop-debate-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke J Miller / Greenville, S.C."}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3d513e6090ed7b53/69887d9c428a9e8439cd1647/trump-cruz-bush-gop-debate-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GOP 2016 Debate","caption":"Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson take the stage before the CBS News Republican","creditText":"John Bazemore—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/republicans/","name":"republicans"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/","name":"Republican Insiders Plan for a Convention Fight Against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch 7 Controversial Presidential Campaign Ads","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/mzDbSMCA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-01-07T17:43:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mzDbSMCA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/","duration":"PT2M4S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4229062/donald-trump-republican-convention-ted-cruz/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```