Ted Cruz would win out at a contested convention,
according to Republicans interviewed by National Review.
"The results on Fox are just a participation ribbon," said Curly Haugland, a Bismarck, North Dakota member of the rules-setting committee for the Republican convention.
A candidate must win the delegate vote during the convention before he is officially named the party's presidential nominee. Insiders who spoke to National Review on condition of anonymity said that a key struggle for candidates is now to sway delegates who are not required to vote for a certain individual after the first vote.
Those delegates are elected by the state parties, and each state has differing rules. Only longtime supporters know how to work those systems.
"It's a really, really, really difficult process," said a delegate who pointed out Mitt Romney's challenges in 2012. Most of Romney's Iowa delegates jumped ship to Ron Paul during the convention.
Many of the delegates are veteran Republican supporters. Those tend to favor Cruz over Donald Trump. Also, Cruz is believed to have the better plan to rally the delegates toward his side.
But that might not be enough, insiders said.
"They talk a big, big game," said one insider. "But they're mostly benefiting from the fact that the insiders, the establishment group in these states, are going to be the ones that know how to work this thing."
Cruz may have the most to gain from the Republican establishment, despite his many battles with them.
Haugland is writing a book detailing the process for the 2,472 delegates. He plans to make it available 45 days before the national convention in Cleveland.
Haugland points to the example of Trump in Arizona, who won 58 delegates there. However, those delegates are not required to vote for him after the first ballot.
"The convention delegates are going to be very conservative people," he said.
Trump's strategy for delegates is "not difficult to figure out in any one state," said Ed Brookover, a Trump strategist. "It only sort of begins to get complicated when you're talking about 56 different places."
Brookover refers to delegates from the 50 states and U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico.
Republican insider Doug Wead
told the New Jersey Star-Ledger, "This isn't constitutional law. This is the private country club called the Grand Old Party and it writes its own rules."
Wead discussed 15 ways the
party can defeat Trump in a blog post.
Wead said, "The idea is to make you so sick, so weary, so beaten down that you will never, ever, even dare to challenge the establishment that runs the Republican Party again. Ever."
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