Utah’s 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland have been awarded to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump because he’s the only candidate still in the race. “There will not be a Republican Party if you attempt to replace Trump”. Mike Lee, was among those on Monday joining anti-Trump delegates loudly protesting the adoption of rules that would quash waning efforts to deny the billionaire the nomination.
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Trump’s campaign is anxious enough about his support in Utah that his vice-presidential nominee, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, is set to visit the state as soon as possible, a source told the Deseret News.
“So I think our party leadership owes Donald Trump a huge apology and it also owes an apology to the delegates who were shut out”.
Pence, a friend of Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, is a favorite with conservatives and is seen as having a style and temperament more in line with Utah Republicans than the often bombastic Trump.
Phill Wright, the chairman of Utah’s delegation, made a symbolic announcement during a Tuesday night roll call that Utah’s delegates are going toward Texas Sen.
Utah Delegation Chairman Phil Wright, who helped lead the effort to overturn the rules, condemned Birkeland’s treatment, suggesting it was against the law and arguing political disagreements should never escalate like that. He noted dryly that Trump only won 14 percent in Utah’s caucus election in March.
Lee, who said two months ago that Trump scared him to death, went on a two-minute rant about how he could not understand the appeal of the world’s latest augmented reality craze. “This is our system”. It’s the one we got. “And this is what happened”.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks to a delegate on the floor during first day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Monday, July 18, 2016.
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“They said the Utah delegation should lose its police protection, and we should all die”, she told The Huffington Post via email.
