Cruz supporters here make play for state delegates

Donald Trump cruised to an easy GOP victory in the state’s Presidential Preference Election, but the fight over who will win support from Arizona’s delegates is far from settled.

The political machinations came to light in an east-side library’s tiny meeting room this week. Word of a political consultant’s email — seeking to stack the state’s delegates with Ted Cruz supporters — revved up a Republican committeemen meeting.

“I am dismayed beyond belief that you do not accept that the Republican voters of Arizona overwhelmingly want Mr. Trump to be the nominee,” said Claudia White, a precinct committeewoman in Legislative District 10. She pushed down her glasses to show a burst blood vessel in one of her eyes that she says was induced by the stress of learning about the local effort to undermine Trump’s nomination.

White was one of more than 100 people who crammed into the Murphy-Wilmot Library Monday night to elect delegates to the state Republican convention to be held in Phoenix at the end of April.

Many spurred to action were Trump backers infuriated by an email Sam Stone, a political consultant, sent to delegates.

“The Cruz campaign is organizing a delegate slate at our state party convention to elect people who would be willing to support Sen. Cruz on a second ballot,” Stone wrote, referring to the possibility of a contested national GOP convention this summer. “If you would like to help elect a true Constitutional conservative, this is your chance.”

Stone said he sees an opportunity for Cruz supporters to prevail at the Republican National Convention.

“It looks increasingly unlikely that Trump will earn the 1,237 delegates needed to win on the first ballot, and after the first ballot most delegates — including those from Arizona — will be free to vote for the candidate of their choice,” Stone said.

WHY IT MATTERS

Staffers for Cruz are scrutinizing how each state might factor into a contested national convention, said Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University.

“They are going state by state, they are looking at what is taking place at the local Republican party and trying to get delegates to go to the convention — delegates that are not necessarily supportive of Trump,” he said.

The possibility that Trump might not have enough votes to secure the party’s nomination has the potential to make the national convention exciting, he said.

“The conventions have become window dressing,” Solop said. “It is a fascinating turn of events — we haven’t seen this play out for quite some time.”

Even if local politicos were able to get Cruz supporters onto the slate of delegates going to the Arizona convention, stacking the deck in favor of Cruz would be tough. That’s because there’s a lot of delegates. Pima County will have 167 delegates — out of 1,251 delegates — at the state convention.

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At the state gathering, the 1,251 delegates will vote on the 57 national delegates who will attend the convention in Cleveland in July.

Up to a dozen of the delegates sent to the Republican National Convention could be from Tucson, Bill Beard, Pima County’s Republican party chairman, estimates.

Arizona EFFORT N

OT EXCLUSIVE

Stone’s tactics to recruit Cruz supporters are a dirty trick designed to pick a candidate away from the public’s view, said Christine Bauserman, a local field organizer for Trump.

The Cruz campaign is doing the same thing in other legislative districts in Arizona as well as in other states, Bauserman said.

“They are trying to steal an election,” she said.

Cruz has a number of delegate strategies tailored to each state.

In Colorado, Cruz is taking advantage of an unusual change to the state’s nominating process and trying to win delegates at a series of rolling caucuses in each of its seven congressional districts. Already, a slate loyal to Cruz swept the first two congressional district assemblies on Saturday.

In North Dakota, delegates to the national convention are free to support the candidate of their choice. In interviews, 10 said they are committed to vote for Cruz at the convention, and a few more said they are leaning toward Cruz. None has endorsed Trump so far.

Bauserman suggests the Cruz campaign is being “laughed at” by the Republican establishment, which wants to divide the party to bring in a third candidate at the convention.

“They are being used by the establishment to get a third candidate on the ballot,” she said.

Bauserman estimated that fewer than a dozen of the 41 delegates elected on Monday night in legislative district 10 are Cruz supporters.