Some Republican delegates are finding ways to avoid voting for presumptive nominee Donald Trump at the party’s July convention.
The Denver Post reports that the majority of Colorado delegates going to Cleveland this summer will not vote for Trump. The Colorado delegates, all of whom were pledged to Cruz, are unbound to vote for whoever each delegate wishes on the first ballot. After the loss in Colorado, Trump attacked the state’s nomination process as “voter-less” and “rigged.”
Regina Thomson, a top Cruz volunteer organizer, told the Post that the delegates “have been committed to Cruz with no intention of casting a vote to nominate anyone else.”
Guy Short, a national delegate pledged to Cruz and member of the RNC Standing Rules Committee, said he “will not be supporting Donald Trump for the GOP nomination. Donald Trump has to earn my support, and he has failed to do that.”
Indiana GOP delegate Joshua Claybourn announced in a tweeted statement he would skip the convention because of the impending Trump nomination. He wrote he will pass on his responsibilities to an alternate delegate.
“Because Republicans might have offered the party’s first contested convention in a generation, I was excited and honored to be selected as a delegate. However, Donald Trump will clearly control enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot, so the convention will simply be a coronation for him to lead the party and, perhaps, our country,” he wrote.
“Moreover, party rules would require I vote for Donald Trump on that first ballot. I choose not to let that happen. I will neither vote for, nor in any other way support Mr. Trump,” Claybourn added.
Not all unbound delegates who preferred Cruz over Trump say they will dump the New York businessman at the convention. North Dakota’s GOP chairman Kelly Armstrong told The Bismark Tribune that it was “no secret” their delegation was “leaning towards Cruz,” but added, “I think most people will rally behind the nominee.”
However, others say that support is more tepid than anything else. Former state representative Bette Grande of Fargo, the chair of Cruz’s campaign, told WDAZ she still plans to cast her ballot for Cruz on the first ballot.
A former Nebraska county GOP chair announced his exit in the Douglas County GOP when the local party endorsed Trump, saying “I just wanted to send a message that the Republicans of Douglas County and Nebraska aren’t all united in that endorsement of Donald Trump.”
“The party is not unified behind Donald Trump,” Baumgart said. “We want to separate ourselves from the Donald Trump supporters. We don’t condone the disparaging remarks he makes against women or veterans or minorities or handicapped.”
Trump has said he can unite the party, but that there are some in the party whose support he does not want.