The Republican Party has no de facto successor to Donald Trump, should he exit the presidential race before Election Day, according to a new Congressional Research Service report produced with prescient timing.
CRS, Congress's non-partisan research arm, published its findings on Thursday, the day before footage of Trump making lewd comments about women fueled speculation that the Republican nominee might leave the ticket.
Trump has firmly rejected the idea that he might quit. However, if he were to drop out before Election Day, the Republican Party would fill the vacancy through either a special meeting of the Republican National Committee or by reconvening the national convention. The party's rules stipulate that RNC voting would be broken down by state delegations, "with the three committee members in each state delegation casting the same number of votes as the number of delegates assigned to it during the previous national convention" and the majority winner selected as the candidate.
If Trump left after Election Day but before taking the presidential oath, the result could be "confusion, controversy, and a breakdown of party discipline," the CRS concluded.
That's because the Republican Party would select a new nominee, and not necessarily Mike Pence, Trump's running mate. "It is assumed that the electors, who are predominantly party loyalists, would abide by the national party’s decisions," the report said, but a "a fragmentation of the electoral vote" could also be the result.
If, however, President-Elect Trump were to quit after the Electoral College meeting but before inauguration, Pence would be sworn in as president come Inauguration Day.
