COLORADO SPRINGS, April 9 (UPI) — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz appears to have outmaneuvered Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in their bid to win delegates at the Colorado GOP convention.
Colorado did not hold a primary this year to determine how its 37 delegates to the Republican convention would be allocated. Instead, a Byzantine series of votes among local and state party committee members has been employed.
Three of the 37 delegates are so-called superdelegates who the Republican National Committee chooses. The remaining 34 are left to the state party to determine. Each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts will elect three delegates for a total of 21. The remaining 13 are being chosen at a party convention being held Saturday.
CNN reports a highly organized Cruz campaign has already claimed all three delegates in at least four of the seven congressional districts. The New York Times reported Friday Cruz had swept all 21 delegates from the state’s congressional districts.
Additionally, with the candidate scheduled to address the Colorado convention on Saturday head of its vote, Cruz backers said they believed they had secured loyalty pledges from a majority of the delegates running at the convention.
Delegates from Colorado have the option of binding themselves to a candidate by signing a pledge, or they can run for a seat without being tied to any single candidate. The Cruz campaign worked studiously to get delegates to sign up for their candidate, then promoted them to win.
There was no such effort apparent from either Trump or Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“I don’t know if Donald Trump has an operation here,” said Rep. Ken Buck, Cruz’s Colorado state chair. “If they do, I haven’t seen it.”
The Trump campaign downplayed the Colorado result, saying they had never intended to invest the time and resources necessary there. A Trump spokesman said the campaign never included any of Colorado’s 37 delegates as part of their count to reach a majority of 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.
