Paul Manafort, a veteran Republican operative who managed the convention efforts of several successful presidential campaigns, was tasked earlier this week by Trump with directing the campaign’s new delegate-focused campaign strategy.
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“There’s the law, and then there’s ethics, and then there’s getting votes”, Manafort said on NBC’s “Meet The Press”. Manafort said, “Well, he’s threatening–you go to these county conventions and you see the Gestapo tactics…” He didn’t give any examples. While Cruz’s campaign spent months recruiting slates of delegates and securing pledges, Trump only this week hired a Colorado state director.
Cruz won all 13 of Colorado’s at-large delegates on Saturday in the state’s multi-tiered delegate system.
Trump has a similar lead in Pennsylvania where he clinches 48% to Kasich’s 22% and Cruz’s 20%, according to the Fox poll of likely GOP primary voters in Pennsylvania.
Trump has 54% of support to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 22% and Texas Sen.
The Pennsylvania poll surveyed 1,607 likely primary voters from April 4-7, and the sample for each primary has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.
“If they don’t get what they want, they blow it up”, said Manafort.
Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier dismissed the complaints as “sour grapes”. “We are winning because we’ve put in the hard work to build a superior organization”, she said. The final three will be appointed by Colorado’s Republican party. Trump is running his own campaign and “was doing very well on a model that made sense, but now, as the campaign has gotten to the end stages, a more traditional campaign has to take place”, he said. Bernie Sanders, by double-digits in both states in the polls. The candidates split the state’s 14 delegates and Clinton continues to enjoy a sizable delegate lead.
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Still, the Trump campaign says they weren’t expecting any delegates in Colorado and have a clear path to 1,237 delegates with big wins on the east coast.
