Donald Trump Is Right: The GOP Primary System Is Rigged

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I hate to agree with Donald Trump about anything, but he’s got a point: the Republican primary process is really unfair. Just look at New York: Kasich and Cruz won 40 percent of the vote but only 4 percent of the delegates. It’s an outrage.

And it’s been that way all along. In the early contests, Trump’s opponents won 68 percent of the vote but only 38 percent of the delegates. On Super Tuesday they won 66 percent of the vote but only 57 percent of the delegates. In early March they eked out a fair result: 63 percent of the vote and 66 percent of the delegates. But on Super Tuesday II it was back to business as usual: they crushed Trump with 60 percent of the vote but won only 38 percent of the delegates.

I’m glad Trump is helping shine a media spotlight on this gross inequity—and he deserves special credit since he’s the one benefiting from it. It’s a pretty selfless act. Maybe someone will finally start paying attention to the way the Republican establishment is so obviously in the bag for Trump.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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