Donald Trump's top delegate strategist predicted Sunday there'll be "only one ballot" at the GOP's convent this summer – and that Trump will have the needed 1,237 delegates to win the nomination before then.
In an interview with ABC News'
"This Week With George Stephanopoulous," Paul Manafort said there are "many paths" to achieving the mandated total, "and we are working all of those paths."
"The dialogue and narrative is not focusing on the real issue," Manafort said. "There's not going to be a second ballot."
Manafort said upcoming contests in California and New Jersey will be crucial.
"The states that we have just finished, this was supposed to be the time of [Sen. Ted] Cruz," he said, adding states where Cruz swept the delegate selection were "rigged systems that have closed caucuses."
Manafort said the campaign will file "protests" to back up claims the Cruz campaign is breaking rules in primary contests.
"The Cruz campaign, even in the closed systems, like Colorado and Missouri, they're not playing by their own rules," he charged. "We've played by [the rules' and winning.That's the point. There will only be one ballot."
Trump, he added, isn't "blaming … the chairman of the Republican National Committee," Reince Priebus, for an "ancient" system of deciding delegates.
"He's complaining about the system," he said. "He's saying, we're playing to open up the process. We're trying to let voters decide… not the party bosses."
But Ken Cuccinelli, who's spearheading the delegate strategy for Cruz, dismissed the charge.
"They use this hyperbolic rhetoric that they can't back up," he said. Manafort "can't answer the question because we're playing within the rules established a long time ago."
"You still have to get to 1,237" delegates, he said. "That's the benchmark. Football teams don't get in the red zone and demand a touchdown and cry when you don't give them one. That's what we're dealing with with the Trump campaign."
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