Donald Trump's proclamation that he'll
no longer honor his pledge to support whoever wins the GOP presidential nomination sets the stage for an explosive confrontation between his supporters and the GOP establishment at this summer's convention, political analyst Dick Morris tells
Newsmax TV.
"Trump's announcement will matter something because he's going to have the capacity to inflame his supporters to a boiling pitch if he's denied the nomination in a way he considers unfair," Morris said Wednesday of the Republican presidential front-runner on "Newsmax Prime" with J.D. Hayworth.
"I believe that the convention when it opens will have Trump in the lead but not at 1,237 needed for nomination. My own guess is he'll be just slightly about 1,000. Cruz, who will probably by then have [Marco] Rubio's support and his delegates, will probably be less than 100 votes behind.
"And then there'll be a lot of maneuvering and wheeling and dealing…. My own guess is that there will not be a first ballot nomination but that it will probably be resolved on the second ballot and probably not in favor of Trump. The question then is what does Donald and what do his supporters do?"
Watch Newsmax TV on
DirecTV Ch. 349, DISH Ch. 223 and
Verizon FiOS Ch. 115. Get Newsmax TV on your cable system —
Click Here Now
Morris also said third-place Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is resisting pressure to drop out of the race, is hindering second-place Ted Cruz from capturing more delegates.
"He's enabling Trump because in all of these states it's either winner-take-all, at which point Kasich takes votes away from Cruz and gives Trump the plurality, or winner-take-all by congressional district, in which case the guy who wins the plurality in each district wins all three of those delegates," he said.
"PPP [Public Policy Polling] just did a poll where they showed Trump 12 points ahead of Cruz with Kasich in it and only two points ahead of Cruz with Kasich out of it. So the Kasich candidacy is really enabling the Trump candidacy."
Morris is the author of
"Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation," written with Eileen McGann and published by Humanix.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.