Delegates, Led by National Committee Members, May Leave Trump at a Contested Convention

By Dan Spencer | 2:30 PM on April 04, 2016

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FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2012, file photo, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan are joined on the stage by their families at the end of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Representatives for news organizations who plan to cover the 2016 convention are protesting a move by the Republican National Committee to charge news media organizations a $150 access fee for seats on the press stand. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Politico reports, based upon interviews with dozens of delegates, delegate candidates, operatives and party leaders, should Donald Trump fail to secure 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination, already more than a hundred [delegates] are poised to break from him on a second ballot:

In one of the starkest examples of Trump’s lack of support, out of the 168 Republican National Committee members — each of whom doubles as a convention delegate — only one publicly supports Trump, and she knows of only a handful of others who support him privately.

“As far as the stealing of the Trump nomination, that’s a big concern for everybody,” said Diana Orrock, the RNC committeewoman from Nevada and the only one of 112 committeemen and women who openly supports Trump. None of the nation’s 56 state and territory GOP chairmen, also convention delegates, have endorsed Trump either. They are subjected to a mix of state-based rules as far as their obligation to back Trump on the first vote.

Out of the 168 Republican National Committee members only one supports Donald Trump.

This makes the excellent delegate wooing game of Sen. Ted Cruz even more important. The fact that Cruz has outperformed the Trump campaigns efforts in Arizona, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, South Carolina and Wyoming suggest Cruz is also better organized to win a contested convention.