A senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has accused rival Donald Trump’s campaign of taking a “banana republic approach” by complaining that party rules for selecting a nominee are rigged against him.
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Ken Cuccinelli, Cruz’s delegate director, slammed Trump’s failure to pick up delegates in Saturday’s Wyoming Republican convention.
Only 72 percent of Republican primary voters said they would support Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton – in fact, 9 percent would rather vote for her instead.
Nonetheless, it’s inevitable that some Trump supporters will find merit in his plaints; and if, as seems likely but not certain, he fails to win in primaries and caucuses the 1,237 delegate votes needed for the nomination, they will start bellowing, “We wuz robbed”. “And Ted Cruz is going to be mathematically eliminated from securing 1,237 delegates by next Tuesday”.
“Well, actually at this stage of course the rules are the rules, and the party put them out there well over a year ago”, Romney said. NBC dedicated only one sentence to the issue before moving on to talk about Trump’s chances of getting 1237 delegates before the GOP convention. While Trump has won more contests than Cruz, his campaign is being repeatedly shown up when it comes to acquiring delegates.
Although both races were similarly close, Trump will gain a greater delegate advantage because of differing rules used by Republicans and Democrats.
Trump said his supporters are becoming increasingly angry with states such as Wyoming and Colorado. The delegates are released if the candidate withdraws, suspends, or terminates his/her campaign or publicly releases his/her delegates. Most of New Mexico’s delegates must pay their own way at a cost of some $5,000.
Several of those involved in the rule-making process told The Associated Press that they believe there’s a consensus inside the party against considering changes before the convention.
And it might play well with rednecks in Cruz’ home state of Texas. Three delegates are allocated to state party leaders and the rest – 54 – are chosen in each congressional district.
“We have won millions of more votes than Ted Cruz, millions and millions more than John Kasich”, Trump said. “I have not endorsed Donald Trump”.
While there are yet too many unallocated delegates to make an accurate count, Cruz’s mastery of the inside process could give him an advantage Trump might struggle to overcome. Conversely, just 3 in 10 voters say the delegates sent to the convention in Cleveland should decide.
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Paul Manafort told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday that the Trump campaign “didn’t want to waste” its money in Wyoming, where it failed to provide a full slate of preferred delegates, only naming six of the possible 14.
