The delegates are unique because they are unbound, which means those delegates do not have to commit to vote for a candidate before the national convention and many suspect none of the three candidates will have clinched the nomination before that point.
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Later this week, both state parties will begin the three-tier caucus system that will be used to select most of the 84 Democratic delegates and 52 Republican delegates who will attend the parties’ presidential elections.
If you are a Republican candidate who said at any time that you’d support the Republican frontrunner, regardless of who that might be, multiple Democratic groups representing senators, representatives and governors are trying to make sure voters don’t forget it.
Donald Trump is vowing not to muzzle his criticism of fellow Republicans.
This might all be just an internal problem of the Republican Party, and of no concern for those of us who are not Republicans, except for one thing. If there is no candidate with a majority, then there is a contested convention and delegates can change whom they vote for at the national convention.
The Republican Party in SC, whose entire 50 delegates were awarded to Trump for his victory in February, required candidates to make the pledge in order to be on the state’s primary ballot. He is telling the cheering Eau Claire crowd that “I don’t care”.
The way that the delegates are divvied up within the Republican party is more complex than that of the Democratic Party.
“I think people are fed up with the process”, said Art Rosenberg, a candidate for one of the party leadership positions voted on over the weekend.
Polls show Cruz with a comfortable lead over Donald Trump heading into Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary.
“It is entirely possible that the men and women gathered here will decide this entire primary – will decide this nomination”, said Cruz. “And we’ll see what happens”, Mr. Priebus said.
John Kasich is coming to California. Despite the fog of political rhetoric, we should not lose sight of the fact that those who voted against Trump in the primaries were far more numerous than those who voted for him. I think most people are happy that Cruz came to North Dakota. “I have been treated very unfairly”.
The Democrats’ strategy is simple: If Trump’s numbers continue to stay low nationally, voters will be less inclined to vote for a senator or representative who supported the real-estate mogul in the past or supported some of Trump’s positions even if they didn’t outright commit to supporting him.
“North Dakota has risen as a powerful energy haven and we are going to keep the federal government the heck out of the way”, Cruz said.
Trump is making a big deal about how he won Louisiana, but got the same number of delegates Cruz got.
But unless a presidential campaign has staunch allies on the ground, there’s no guarantee that those committed delegates will stick with a particular candidate after the first round.
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In the end, however, the decisions will not be known until the delegates place their vote on the first ballot at the national convention in Cleveland.
