The Arizona Republican Party’s chairman is scolding a state delegate who says she won’t support presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump at the upcoming GOP national convention. But the law in question was so obscure that Republicans had already chose to allocate delegates in a proportional fashion, based on the results of the state’s March 1 primary, which Trump won. He also warned that she could be replaced by an alternate who will “follow the rules”.
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The conservative, joined by his wife on the panel, is one of the highest-profile committee members and has been non-committal on his views about whether the results of this year’s primaries and caucuses should continue to bind numerous delegates to Trump on the first round of nomination balloting. That’s an anti-Trump group that seeks to unbind delegates from having to vote for him at the convention scheduled for July 18-21 in Cleveland. “I don’t think we need to add things”. It’s a premise that troubles even some Republican delegates.
If she succeeds, top party and Trump campaign officials say her plan would be defeated.
Trump won all 58 bound delegates in the Arizona primary with 47 percent of the vote on March 22 against Texas Sen.
But the draft platform doesn’t really change its stance on abortion. Campaign manager Paul Manafort, a veteran of previous contested Republican conventions, will be leading a team of hundreds of staffers and loyal volunteers responsible for warding off an insurrection among more conservative party members still bitterly opposed to Trump’s candidacy. John McCain, who have said they will not attend the 2016 GOP convention.
There will be 2,472 delegates at the convention.
One source tells TheDC that 30 members of the rules committee are already committed to supporting a minority report, but this can change at any time. Given that Trump has about 890 delegates personally loyal to him and 680 in opposition, the Journal reports, getting to 1,237 would require persuading almost two-thirds of remaining delegates to take a defiant stand.
McConnell endorsed presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump right after he became the presumptive nominee, but has since criticized the billionaire publicly and repeatedly, most vocally after Trump attacked a federal judge overseeing a federal lawsuit against Trump University.
The anti-Trump movement has not thrown out any names, and Wheeler said that’s good because doing so would further splinter the party, causing an internal fight over which candidate to support.
In the past couple weeks, members of the rules committee have been heavily lobbied by anti-Trump forces, wanting them to consider changing the rules so delegates are not bound to the controversial NY billionaire on the first ballot.
“I’m excited”, Popma said in a phone interview last week.
In an unusual move for Trump’s campaign, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, stepped forward to vouch for Trump’s character with a statement that did not address the tone of the real estate mogul’s campaign, but said he was “an incredibly loving and tolerant person” who does not “at all subscribe to any racist or anti-semitic thinking”.
“People have come to terms with the fact that this is what the electorate wanted, and whether they agree with it personally or not, the mood that I hear is that the delegates are ready to do what the electorate wants, ” he said.
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Donald Trump, a showman and untested political leader, appears to have the Republican presidential nomination sewn up.
