Trump’s just-in-case strategy is to challenge delegates loyal to Ted Cruz

▶ The GOP front-runner has a backdoor strategy to win ▶ “We are going to keep our options open on these challenges”

With the Republican presidential race heading for a contentious finish, an obscure nine-member committee may soon find itself in an unaccustomed position of influence over the outcome. The panel, known as the Contests Committee, arbitrates claims of unfairness in delegate selection ahead of the party’s national convention in July. If Donald Trump falls short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination before the convention, the Contests Committee will be the first formal arena where his complaints will be heard. “PostNew York primary, we’re more confident than ever that we’ll win on the first ballot, but we are going to keep our options open on these challenges,” says Barry Bennett, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “We haven’t made any decisions yet, but we certainly have some legitimate beefs.”

The campaign has hired Jones Day partner William Mcginley to advise on challenges. He specialized in delegate selection during his time as a deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee in the late 1990s. “We’ll be filing protests,” Trump strategist Paul Manafort said in an April 17 interview on ABC’S This Week With George Stephanopoulos. “Missouri, we’re going to be filing protests. Colorado, we’re going to be filing protests.”

States have to certify their delegate slates for the national convention by June 13. Campaigns have five days to file challenges to the Contests Committee, which in turn sends advisory opinions to the convention’s credentialing committee. Most complaints stem from irregularities at local and state conventions—sloppy paperwork, miscounted delegate ballots, or procedural errors by the chair.

The 16 states and territories that assign delegates through caucuses, which account for more than 400 delegates, are the most susceptible to challenge, since the process is far more chaotic and idiosyncratic than a primary. Trump has won only four caucuses so far, half as many as his chief

rival, Ted Cruz, whose delegates may be targeted by the GOP front-runner.

Credentialing fights have shaped presidential races before. At the 1952 Republican convention, neither Dwight Eisenhower nor Robert Taft walked in with enough delegates to clinch the nomination. Eisenhower’s campaign challenged Taft’s delegates in several states, and a rules battle on the convention floor resulted in those questioned delegates being barred from voting on credential challenges, ensuring an Eisenhower victory.

In 2012, Maine was one of several states where delegates loyal to Texas Representative Ron Paul were challenged by Mitt Romney’s campaign. In the end, 10 pro-paul delegates, who had already booked airfare and hotel accommodations on their own dime, were replaced with Romney supporters, a decision that led Maine Republican Governor Paul Lepage to boycott the convention in protest.

In March, Trump threatened to lodge a formal complaint with the RNC over the delegate allocation process in Louisiana. He came in first in the popular vote, but tied with Cruz in the delegate count. Trump was then outhustled at the state convention by Cruz, who won the support of five additional free-agent delegates. In Colorado, Cruz won most of the delegates at the state convention in April. Trump’s campaign said it was hampered by ballot misprints and other issues.

“Whenever you have a contest as uncertain as this one is, it would be surprising if there weren’t procedural disagreements and arguments that rules were not being adhered to,” says Thomas Balch, who served as an expert on parliamentary rules at Maine’s 2012 state convention.

This year, Balch has been advising local party leaders in several states on how to bulletproof their conventions, including the one in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District. There, eight local delegates were deemed ineligible to move on to the national convention because they had supported independent candidates in a previous election, which under party rules disqualifies them from being Republican delegates this year. “I was specifically told by the [convention] chair that in other years when it was clear who the nominee was going to be, they would have probably not been as rigorous in enforcing the rules,” Balch says. “But this year, it was specifically important to make sure that everything was done in accordance of the rules out of fear of a challenge.” �Steven Yaccino, with John Mccormick and Jennifer Jacobs

The bottom line The Trump campaign is lining up staff to challenge delegates loyal to rival Ted Cruz before the national GOP convention.