Colorado Republicans Post Names of Possible Delegates Who Could Pick Presidential Nominee

Colorado Republicans Post Names of Possible Delegates Who Could Pick Presidential Nominee
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

The Colorado Republican Party posted a list on its website Thursday of the names of candidates running to be Colorado delegates at July's Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The list also includes the presidential candidates each potential delegate is supporting, if any.

The public list could set off a furious effort among the remaining presidential candidates to either get their supporters elected as national delegates or win over the undecided candidates vying to be delegates.

Under Colorado GOP Party rules, Republicans who are running for one of the Colorado GOP's 34 national delegate slots have the option of binding themselves to a specific presidential candidate, like Donald Trump. Or they can run "unbound" to a candidate, leaving themselves free to vote for any candidate during the first vote at the GOP National convention.

They make their choice known to the Colorado Republican Party on a form, titled "National Delegate Intent to Run Form," that must be submitted 13 days prior to the April 9 Republican State Convention or the April 8 Congressional District Convention, where delegates are selected for the national Republican Convention. Delegates to those meetings are chosen from county and congressional district assemblies.

Colorado Republicans eliminated their preference poll at their March 1 caucuses, so reporters have been unable to get a handle on how the state GOP will allocate its delegates. Some caucuses held nonbinding votes anyway, raising the possibility that national delegates who voted in straw polls may be bound to their straw-poll votes, per national GOP rules.

Colorado Republicans get 34 elected national-delegate spots. Three additional Colorado delegates are determined by the Republican National Committee. By rule, those three delegates are specificied to be the State GOP Chairman (House), the RNC Commmitteeman for Colorado (George Leing), and the RNC Committeewoman for Colorado (Lilly Nunez).

After the first vote at the GOP National Convention, all of Colorado's delegates will become unbound and free to vote any candidate, according to House, who appeared on KLZ's "Americhicks" show.

Steve House himself is going to the convention as an unbound delegate, and he's likely to vote for one of the candidates who are in the race now, according to The Hill's Jonathan Easley and Ben Kamisar.

House said that even if one of the candidates arrives with a strong plurality of delegates, he wouldn't feel obligated to push that candidate across the finish line solely by virtue of them coming the closest.

"I'm looking at whether the candidate is a conservative and whether they can win in November," he said. "I'm voting for the candidate that meets that criteria, period."

House also said he will likely only support a candidate who is still running for president, rather than a "white knight" candidate, like Mitt Romney or [Paul] Ryan, who could be put forward in later ballots.

House said he's being heavily lobbied:

"I've received hundreds of emails, and I'm getting phone calls from people telling me who they think should be president and why," said Steve House, the chairman of the Republican Party in Colorado and an unbound delegate.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot