CASPER, WYO.: Painstaking organization and in-person campaigning paid off again for Ted Cruz on Saturday as he nailed down all 14 delegates up for grabs at the Republican Party convention in Wyoming. The result leaves Donald Trump facing yet another loss in a string of defeats in Western states.
Saturday’s sweep for Cruz follows his victory last month in Wyoming, when he scored nine of 12 available delegates at county conventions. Trump and Marco Rubio each won one delegate last month in Wyoming while one remained undecided.
Trump still leads the overall delegate race. The AP delegate count: Trump, 744; Cruz, 559; and Kasich, 144. Needed to win: 1,237.
Cruz was the only candidate to address the convention in Casper on Saturday, promising to end what he called President Barack Obama’s “war on coal” if he’s elected. Wyoming is the nation’s leading coal-producing state.
Calling America, “the Saudi Arabia of coal,” Cruz vowed to roll back federal regulations he says hamper coal production.
Trump largely bypassed the state. In a telephone interview Saturday on Fox and Friends, he said: “I don’t want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming many months before to wine and dine and to essentially pay off these people, because a lot of it’s a payoff, you understand that?”
Trump’s defeat in Wyoming follows his shutout earlier this month in Colorado, where he failed to pick up a single delegate of the 34 in play. He has urged his supporters to protest the results to state officials in that state.
Campaigning in New York on Saturday, Trump said, “I guess I’m complaining ’cause it’s not fair to the people.” In Wyoming and Colorado, he said, “the people never got a chance to vote.”
Cruz, in an interview after his speech in Casper, said Trump’s decision not to campaign in Wyoming is telling. “The reason he decided not to show up is he recognized he couldn’t win, he couldn’t earn the support of conservatives in Wyoming,” Cruz said.
Cruz has benefited from a deep, grass-roots campaign effort in Wyoming, where the state GOP machine has detailed rules for the delegate selection process. Ed Buchanan, a former Wyoming House speaker, has served as chairman of the Cruz campaign.
“It’s just great to have the support of the Wyoming voters,” Buchanan said after the delegate selection was announced. “They share Ted Cruz’s conservation principles, and that’s why we’re successful today.”