In the YouGov survey, only 47 percent of voters said the convention should select Trump if he fails to reach 1,237 delegates, while 45 percent said the candidates should “fight for delegate support at the convention to decide the winner.” Not coincidentally, these percentages closely matched the candidates’ overall level of support in the poll.3 Explicitly pointing out that Republican rules require a candidate to get a majority and portraying the convention as a fight for delegates among the candidates rather than one in which the delegates are deciding things on their own seem to sway #TolerateTrump voters back into aligning with the #NeverTrump’s.

But if the framing of the question matters, Trump has a big advantage: The media is mostly echoing and validating his side of the argument. That’s partly because Trump continues to dominate news coverage of the Republican race and therefore has a lot more opportunities to get his message out.4

It also helps that Trump’s system-is-rigged message is relatively simple and plays into the media’s master narrative of the Republican race as a conflict between the Republican base and the GOP “establishment.” The Republicans’ delegate selection rules, by contrast, require an attention to detail that narrative-driven stories about the Republican race can misconstrue. Take this recent article from Jonathan Martin of The New York Times as an example…