Looks like Cruz may take the remaining Colorado delegates as people on the ground there are saying Donald Trump is nowhere to be found:
NBC NEWS – There’s a recurring question among the Republicans gathering in Colorado at state and local conventions to choose delegates this week: “Where’s Donald Trump?”
Colorado is a rare state where party officials choose delegates without any input from a primary or caucus vote. The bulk of the state’s 37 delegates will be picked at a series of congressional district conventions on Friday and a state convention on Saturday in Colorado Springs. Prospective delegates can run as unaffiliated free agents or pledge to back a candidate.
“There just doesn’t seem to be any Trump organization at all, to be honest,” Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman, told MSNBC. “I do think that Cruz has an advantage going into this convention on Saturday.”
With the odds rising that no candidate will secure the 1,237 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination, the race increasingly hinges on this kind of Byzantine state-by-state delegate selection process. Trump has won by far the most pledged delegates, who are required to support him on the first ballot. Most will be free to vote for whomever they chose after that and the candidates generally have little input into picking.
There is little evidence Trump’s campaign is up to the task so far, however, giving Sen. Ted Cruz a major opening to overtake the front-runner on the Cleveland convention floor.
Colorado will provide a major test of the dueling campaigns when it comes to gaming the delegate process.
Cruz’s operation is headed up by Congressman Ken Buck, his state chairman and a mainstay in Colorado’s GOP. Trump’s campaign has no official state chair and it’s not clear who’s running things. James Baker, the campaign’s initial point person for the state, was fired this week amid infighting between senior staff, according to a Politico report. Baker did not respond to an email from MSNBC on Wednesday, nor did a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Cruz will address the convention. Trump canceled an appearance in the state to campaign in New York instead.
“It seems like an epic fail on the Trump campaign’s part,” he said. “I don’t see anyone organizing.”
But I thought Trump was the smartest guy on the planet? How can this be????