After a tough week in the polls, Donald Trump has dropped out of the presidential campaign. Trump’s public relations vice president John Miller spoke to the press.
“Donald Trump had a routine medical exam, which included a colonoscopy. During that part of the examination, it was discovered that Mr. Trump has stage one brain cancer. In order to focus on treatment, he has decided to withdraw his bid for the presidency.”
Miller, who gave the release by phone, explained that Trump’s campaign was not at all influenced by the existence of a tumor and that everything “The Donald” had said to date should be taken at face value.
The news came just days after the candidate became stuck in a negative media cycle after criticizing the Muslim parents of a deceased American soldier killed in action. During the same week, he refused to endorse multiple Republican party leaders, leading to them in-turn endorsing the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Though unprecedented, the Republican National Committee rules do handle the situation. Rule 9 deals with “Filling Vacancies in Nominations,” and clarified that should the party’s presidential or vice presidential candidate leave the ticket, the absence may be filled by reconvening the national convention, or the party committee.
If the committee fills the vacancy – far more likely, given the logistics of organizing and hosting another convention – RNC members representing each state are entitled to cast the same number of votes as were allocated to their state during the convention. If there is not an agreement within a state, that state’s votes are distributed evenly among the agreeable states. Any candidate chosen must have a majority.
