The movement to select someone – anyone – other than Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee faces its first major test this week, and a handful of delegates from Washington state are among those working to make sure the effort succeeds.
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Angelo Merendino/Getty Images Quicken Loans Arena is decorated to welcome the Republican National Convention on July 11, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. That panel’s initial votes are expected to demonstrate how firmly Trump and GOP Chairman Reince Priebus control the convention, which meets in full next week.
No one expects Unruh’s proposal to win a majority on the 112-member convention rules committee, which is heavy with top party officials. Some of those top-ranking Illinois Republicans have been vocal in saying they won’t endorse Trump.
RNC General Counsel John Ryder, who is also a Trump delegate from Tennessee, presented the main points to the committee, giving his legal opinion on why delegates to the Republican National Convention are bound to the victor of their state’s primary or caucus on the first ballot.
One, that “delegates do vote their conscience and not try to be manipulated or guided or pushed by the RNC and the Trump campaign”. In Cleveland, she leaned against the wall of the sparse offices the “Delegates Unbound” group has rented near the convention.
But an eleventh-hour battle is raging behind the scenes that could deny Trump the Republican nomination.
“Whether you supported Donald Trump along the way or not: He. Is. Our”.
Delegates say the NY billionaire also has helped his cause by stringing together a few controversy-free days, and could further placate his critics by tapping an appealing running mate. Ted Cruz, who dropped out of the race in May.
“I can’t go out and vote for Trump, or tell people he’s best for the party – they’d be asking me to lie”. “What happens remains to be seen, but you can definitely count on the Bikers for Trump standing with the police department in the event they need it”. “I just don’t like what I see; what I see is a delegation that’s ready to go to Cleveland and undermine the process, at least so far as the IL delegation is concerned”. Even if they get the rule changes, it is unclear whether they could persuade enough delegates to go against The Donald.
“All of you have undoubtedly received emails that begin with the sentence ‘No delegate is bound.’ That’s not true”, Ryder said.
“It won’t last very long on the floor”, he said, dismissing Ms. Unruh’s pull within the GOP.
Critics of the effort say that the plan lacks the votes it needs and would thwart the will of about 13.3 million people who backed Trump in the party’s primaries and caucuses.
The speaker deflected a question from audience member Steve Lonegan, a New Jersey Republican who has been active in the effort to unbind the delegates.
She said he’s confidentthe minority report will pass onto the floor for the delegates to vote.
“Clearly, from what Trump has said he can be categorized as racist”, said Barrett Coleman, a 28-year-old graduate student from Richmond, Virginia, who is supporting Clinton.
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“Most people are not going to sit around and say, ‘Okay, that’s okay, ‘” he said. “So I can’t imagine that people are going to sit around and not do anything”.
