ROCHESTER, N.Y. (TheBlaze/AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is blasting the way the country chooses presidential party nominees as “corrupt” and “crooked” as he grapples with the potential of a contested convention that he risks losing.
Reacting to the fact that all of Colorado’s 34 delegates went to his rival Ted Cruz despite the fact that residents were not allowed to vote, Trump alleged the “people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians.” He called it the “biggest story in politics.”
The people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians. Biggest story in politics. This will not be allowed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2016
How is it possible that the people of the great State of Colorado never got to vote in the Republican Primary? Great anger – totally unfair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2016
The Denver Post explained the unusual situation in Colorado back in 2015:
Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state’s clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era.
The GOP executive committee has voted to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state’s delegates to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.
The move makes Colorado the only state so far to forfeit a role in the early nomination process, according to political experts, but other caucus states are still considering how to adapt to the new rule.
Speaking to thousands packed in a frigid airport hangar in western New York on Sunday, Trump also ripped the byzantine fight over delegates at the heart of his party’s nominating process. He argued anew that the person who wins the most votes in the primary process should automatically be the GOP nominee.
What they’re trying to do is subvert the movement with crooked shenanigans,” said Trump, comparing his woes to those of Bernie Sanders, who is winning states but still far behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates that decide party nominations.
“We should have won it a long time ago,” Trump said. “But, you know, we keep losing where we’re winning.”
Trump was coming to terms with the political reality of candidates chasing delegates ahead of their nominating convention, and now he’s shifting his focus to developing a strategy akin to the one rival Ted Cruz has been pursuing for months.
“A more traditional approach is needed and Donald Trump recognizes that,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s new delegate chief, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” At his rally in Rochester, Trump repeatedly insisted his campaign was “doing fine” and predicted he would clinch the nomination before the summer convention.
Nonetheless, his supporters described with disdain what they saw as an effort by the party’s establishment to deny Trump a victory they feel he has already earned.
“I’m 59 years old and maybe I’ve had my head in the sand through the years, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Cheryl Griggs of Hilton, New York, who attended the rally with her son. “To go against the votes of the people and the will of the people and put somebody else in there, I think, is horrific.”
She said she didn’t understand the delegate process and believes that the winner should be decided by popular vote.