Big Delegate Win For Ted Cruz In North Dakota Today

Big Delegate Win For Ted Cruz In North Dakota Today

Posted at 7:11 pm on April 3, 2016 by Greg Pollowitz

North Dakota Republicans gathered today in Fargo to select the delegates the state will send to the GOP convention is July. As each delegate is unbound on the first ballot, it was crucial for candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich to get their delegates elected today.

The verdict? It’s looking like Ted Cruz had a very, very good day with one estimate of 18 of the state’s 25 delegates as pro-Cruz folks:

Ted Cruz declared victory in a statement from his campaign:

But as we said, these delegates are unbound and can change their mind at will. Senior adviser to the Kasich campaign Michael Biundo even thanked Cruz for getting some Kasich supporters elected on his slate:

How soon until we hear Cruz cheated?

We won’t know who these delegates are actually for, however, until the vote at the convention. There was a proposal to make the delegates declare their allegiance now, but it didn’t pass:

As you can see, the vote was tense:

And this is a good point to make: Barack Obama is president today because he understood the delegate game better than Hillary Clinton:

Cruz gets it and Trump is playing catch up.

http://twitchy.com/2016/04/03/big-de...-dakota-today/

North Dakota delegate hunt looks good for Cruz

By Phil Mattingly and Tom LoBianco, CNN
Updated 7:11 PM ET, Sun April 3, 2016 | Video Source: CNN

Fargo, North Dakota (CNN)North Dakota Republicans selected 25 national delegates Sunday, with results that looked good for Ted Cruz, but were far from certain because each delegate will be a free agent at the national convention.

The North Dakota delegates include a handful of Republicans who have said they will vote for Cruz. But just as many delegates were mum about their plans when questioned over the weekend.

Party leaders make up many of the slots, including Gov. Jack Dalrymple, First Lady Betsy Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and top party donors.

The Cruz campaign put significant time and resources into the North Dakota voting -- as GOP rivals Donald Trump and John Kasich -- and on Sunday evening sought to portray the results as an unequivocal win.

"I'm thrilled to have the vote of confidence of Republican voters in North Dakota who delivered such a resounding victory today," Cruz said in a statement. "As I met them over the weekend, North Dakota Republicans recognized that I am the only candidate who can move this country forward by protecting freedom and liberty. Whether we defeat Donald Trump before the convention or at it, I'm energized to have the support of the vast majority of North Dakota delegates."

Cruz himself addressed the North Dakota Republican gathering. The other campaigns sent surrogates.

Former candidate Ben Carson rallied the more than 1,600 state delegates for Trump Sunday morning, with a speech focused heavily on faith and his efforts to teach Trump religion and spirituality. But behind the scenes he lobbied North Dakota Republican brass one-on-one.

Ahead of Sunday's speech, he pulled North Dakota Republican Party convention committeeman Curly Haugland into a private meeting. Carson also met privately with former Gov. Ed Schafer.

"We had an opportunity to really explain things, to explain rationale for doing things," Carson told CNN backstage at the Scheels Arena. "I said the proof will be in the pudding we'll see how it all comes out."

As the delegates packed into this Fargo hockey arena for the final day of their state convention, the Trump, Cruz and Kasich campaigns worked furiously to identify supporters. Republicans were scheduled to vote for 25 national delegates from a list of 74 nominated delegates.

But the state's unique delegate selection process -- which lets delegates vote for whichever candidate they prefer at the national convention -- led to much battling between the campaigns.

North Dakota's lone congressman, Rep. Kevin Cramer, endorsed Trump Sunday, shortly before North Dakota Republicans began selecting the delegates to the national convention.

"It's something I'd been processing for a long time and it really culminated with my online straw poll where I really did want to give voice to the people who can't be here," Cramer said.

Because the delegates will be unbound, they are not formally committed to any campaign. But that didn't stop the campaigns from working to set expectations so they could claim victory.

Trump adviser Barry Bennett told CNN that "a plurality" on the list of 25 preferred were leaning toward Trump after a strong lobbying effort from Cramer, who Bennett called the Trump operation's "Sherpa" over the course of the hectic weekend.

"We'll be drinking champagne here all day," Bennett said, if the slate of 25 delegates picked by party leaders earlier this weekend passes in the convention.

Still, as is the case on the ground states around the country, Cruz's campaign has had a strong presence in and around the convention. In addition to Cruz's speech on Saturday, Carly Fiorina, the former presidential candidate and top Cruz surrogate, has been meeting publicly and privately with potential delegates since Friday.

As many as 10 of the delegates on the preferred list have indicated some or solid public support for Cruz.

Kasich's delegate wranglers were equally optimistic Saturday after reviewing the list of party picks, saying they saw at least 20 on their who could be swayed to their side.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/03/politi...z-john-kasich/

Quote:

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How soon until we hear Cruz cheated?

---

It's like with most of the caucuses. It's all rigged with the Establishment that runs the caucuses and state conventions. This is the Establishment. This means we have to a) get more Trump Supporters to the polls to win the primaries b) do a better job at the caucuses and c) shame the delegates into voting for the country and the voters of the state instead of for themselves.

Definition of a delegate:

a person sent or authorized to represent others, in particular an elected representative sent to a conference.

1.
entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.
"he delegates routine tasks"

Delegates to a convention represent the voters. Delegates are entrusted to represent the voters at the convention. Delegates are emissaries for the voters of the their state.

It's never the right of a delegate to deviate from that. Delegates can't say oh voters I represented you on the first ballot but voted for myself on the second ballot. Delegates can't say oh screw you voters, you're stupid, you don't know how to vote, your candidate sucks and offends me, I'm voting for who I like not who you like and voted for.

Our party is really screwed up.

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The officially unofficial North Dakota GOP delegate (Boom, baby!) count.

By: Moe Lane (Diary) | April 3rd, 2016 at 06:30 PM | 7

http://www.redstate.com/uploads/2016...ch-620x345.jpg
Officially unofficial because, as Dan Spencer ably reported earlier today, the scene was… energetic… at the North Dakota Republican convention this afternoon as everybody in the state party jockeyed for position. The state has 28 delegates: 3 are reserved for party officials, and the remaining 25 are all officially unbound.

However, this did not stop the promulgation of both an official ND GOP slate of preferred delegates, and candidate slates.

And of those slates: Ted Cruz put out a slate of 23 preferred delegates (both the Governor and the Attorney General were themselves running to be delegates*, which is why Cruz didn’t give out a full slate of 25). He got 18 out of 23.

There were 6 people on the ND GOP list (but not the Cruz list) who won (including the Governor and the AG); the 7th person was apparently the First Lady. Depending on who you ask, there’s between zero and three potential pro-Trump delegates.

So, what’s the final score? …Speaking unofficially? When you combine the Cruz slate results with best-guesses from trawling social media then Ted Cruz cleaned up with maybe 20 unofficial delegates; although, to be fair, a lot of those delegates would also be apparently amenable to persuasion from John Kasich. The rest are… hard to say, although they’re not exactly prime Donald Trump recruiting material.

Still: thus, again, we see the power of organization. And starting early. Also: thus we also see the negative power of endorsements… because Rep. Kevin Cramer’s endorsement of Donald Trump apparently didn’t move the needle one inch. Although it might earn Rep. Cramer a last-minute primary challenger, which (based on his voting record) is a bit sloppy for North Dakota…

Moe Lane

PS: Again: this is all unofficial. None of these delegates are bound. So don’t take them for granted.

*The GOP is sometimes not too big on super-delegates.

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/201...kota-ted-cruz/

This is the reason that I no longer care for Ted Cruz. He is just another politician participating in the dirty process of nullifying the will of the people for his own potential gain. It makes me wonder what the GOP has promised him, because the nomination is clearly something that they don't want him to have. Supreme Court Justice perhaps?...

Cruz visits North Dakota as state picks Republican convention delegates


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfgjTEfFtws

Published on Apr 3, 2016
Ted Cruz took a break from the Wisconsin campaign trail on Saturday to make an appearance at North Dakota’s Republican convention, where presidential delegates were being selected for the Republican national convention. Cruz spoke to an audience where he said it was “entirely possible” that North Dakotan delegates could help determine the GOP nominee. Trump and Ohio governor John Kasich sent supporters to make their cases for delegates’ backing. Convention-goers were scheduled to select 25 of their 28 national delegates on Sunday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfgjTEfFtws