Elections

Trump Threatens Lawsuit Over Louisiana Delegates Lost To Cruz

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Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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Donald Trump threatened Sunday to file a lawsuit over the 10 Louisiana delegates he lost to Texas Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] recently.

The Trump campaign lost 10 delegates to Cruz in the state of Louisiana despite Trump winning the primary by almost 3.6 percentage points over the Texas senator.

Both Trump and Cruz initially received 18 delegates following the primary. Cruz’s ground game operation in Louisiana, though,  helped Cruz win more delegates when more of his supporters turned out for post primary procedural meetings.

Kay Kellogg Katz, a former Louisiana state legislator and Trump supporter who has attended every GOP convention since 1984, told the Wall Street Journal that Cruz’s team out-organized Trump’s. Katz lost her delegate position on a key Republican National Committee Convention panel in a 22-5 vote to political new comer and Cruz supporter Kim Fralick.

“I do not know Mr. Trump, I do not know his staff people. Quite frankly, we don’t have much of a campaign in Louisiana. All we have is voters,” Katz told WSJ.

Five of the state’s delegates, who were formerly supporting Sen. [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] are now likely to support Cruz, Louisiana Republicans believe. Additionally, a GOP official told WSJ that the state’s five unbound delegates — who are free to back the candidates of their choice — are likely to back Cruz over Trump.

Following the Louisiana primary, delegates met at a March 12 meeting to decide who would represent the state committee on three key convention committees — rules, credentials and the party platform. The majority of the delegates elected two members to each panel that day. Cruz delegates managed to fill up five of the six available posts.

Similar scenarios at delegate meetings played out to Cruz’s favor in Georgia as well as South Carolina, both states that Trump won.

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