The shadow battle for Republican convention delegates turns next to Colorado, where a days-long selection process will culminate this weekend — and once again, it seems Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has the edge.
While Donald Trump still holds a wide delegate lead in the GOP presidential primary race, his Achilles heel has been a perceived weakness in his ground game. Seeking to capitalize on this, Cruz has outmaneuvered Trump lately in the behind-the-scenes battle for delegates in places that don’t assign them through traditional primaries or caucuses.
Enter states like North Dakota, and now Colorado.
Both eschewed traditional primary elections and instead held conventions — where delegates not necessarily bound to any candidate are selected. Cruz saw this as an opportunity anyway to get allies elected to the slate, banking on their support in the event of an open convention.
The candidate, after picking up more likely delegate allies than Trump in last weekend’s North Dakota convention, has been on a roll in Colorado.
Thirty-four delegates are at stake in the convention process, and the Cruz campaign told Fox News on Friday afternoon it has picked up 15 delegates so far in a series of local GOP meetings. The process culminates Saturday at the state convention where a final 13 delegates will be selected.
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In Colorado, delegates can pledge themselves to a candidate or run unbound. Those who do pledge only do so for the first round of voting at the convention in Cleveland. The Cruz campaign says the pro-Cruz delegates selected so far are a mix of pledged and unbound but say they will back Cruz in Cleveland.
“His team has been masterful in being able to use their influence and power … to pull the delegates in,” Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science and international studies at Iona College, told FoxNews.com LIVE.
Trump has been trying to beef up his team’s delegate expertise, recently hiring convention veteran Paul Manafort to organize and implement his convention push.
While Trump is not scheduled to appear in Colorado, the campaign recently replaced their state director, and their new operative on the ground, Patrick Davis, told Breitbart News they are distributing Trump slates and “talking with convention delegates face to face [and] changing minds.”
But Cruz will appear in person, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich has dispatched former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu.
“We’ve seen very little sign of Donald Trump, and a lot more Kasich stickers than Donald Trump stickers,” Andrew Boucher, a chief convention strategist for John Kasich, told FoxNews.com.
Cruz’s in-person appearance is part of a wider strategy to dominate the state’s nominating process. Colorado Republican operatives say that, just by winning the local gatherings, Cruz could lock down a majority of the 34 delegates up for grabs, even before Saturday’s convention.
“Cruz has the big upper hand here,” Ryan Lynch, a Colorado-based Republican told The Associated Press. “They’re the only ones really organized.”
Although the 34 delegates up for grabs may seem paltry compared with the 95 in New York and 172 in California — both upcoming primary contests — strategists point out that every delegate Cruz gets is one more step toward holding Trump under the necessary 1,237 delegates in the event of a contested convention.
“While Trump is leading in several upcoming states like New York and Pennsylvania, Cruz is pulling out all the stops with strategies to capture delegates in order to get to a contested convention,” Ron Bonjean, an unaffiliated Republican strategist, told FoxNews.com. “Every delegate that is picked off in places like Colorado is a win for Cruz and makes it harder for Trump to be the nominee.”
Kasich’s team is also taking a long-view approach, planting the seeds with unbound delegates that the Ohio governor could be the best choice at the convention in Cleveland in July.
“We are actively reaching out them. We are planting the seeds,” Boucher said. “It’s a long process.”
Trump to date has 743 delegates, while Cruz has 520 and Kasich has 143. Cruz was boosted by his Tuesday win in the Wisconsin primary, though Trump is favored to win the next bout in New York.
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