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The Lid: Rigged Or Just the Rules?

After being outmaneuvered at a handful of state and local-level party conventions in the past few days, Donald Trump is beginning to take a new tune towards the complicated process of delegate selection.
Image: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event in La Crosse
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event at the La Crosse Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Kamil KrzaczynskiKAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Reuters

Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… Baseball is back! MLB players are ready to undergo a long, grueling 162-game season full of triumph and heartbreak, followed by playoffs that will end with a World Series champion! And, after all that has happened, the 2016 election STILL won’t be over.

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‘16 from 30,000

After being outmaneuvered at a handful of state and local-level party conventions in the past few days, Donald Trump is beginning to take a new tune towards the complicated process of delegate selection. The short version: He says it’s “corrupt” and “not fair.” Trump’s argument is essentially that he won the most votes, so he should have the support -- in loyal spirit as well as by the letter of the law -- of the most delegates at the national convention.

There’s absolutely no question that the GOP delegate selection process is dizzyingly complicated, with separate sets of rules for almost every state. And for Trump, whose very candidacy has been based on taking aim at the fundamental unfairness of the “Washington establishment,” it’s not hard to try to sell voters on the idea that the bad ol’ D.C. eggheads are hiding behind deliberately complicated rules to try to rob the people of their votes.

But it’s also completely true that the system in place, as complicated as it is, is nothing new and has always included at least some level of candidate maneuvering and wrangling over the rules (just ask those Ron Paul supporters in 2012.) Trump, like he has in so many other areas of his campaign, has managed to create a scenario so unpredictable that a whole lot of people are now bracing to study with Talmudic intensity about a system they never had to care about before.

POPPING ON NBC POLITICS

Bernie Sanders is calling for the shutdown of a nuclear power plant outside New York City that has leaked radioactive material into groundwater supplies.

Democrats nationwide hailed the governors of New York and California for raising their states’ minimum wage to $15 per hour, NBC’s Perry Bacon Jr. writes.

John Kasich responded to Trump’s calls for him to get out of the race.

Trump told Wisconsin voters that Tuesday's primary could end the GOP primary battle.

From First Read: What the Wisconsin primary will and won’t tell us about the 2016 race.

FOR THE RECORD…

“I always get good crowds. I’ve always had ratings from the time I was born, for whatever reason.”

  • Donald Trump, to New York Magazine.

TOMORROW’S SKED

It’s primary day! Dems and Republicans go to the polls in Wisconsin.

Hillary Clinton campaigns in Brooklyn, while Bill Clinton is in Western and Central New York.

Bernie Sanders is in Wyoming. Ted Cruz makes the final push in Milwaukee.