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.