SPOKANE, Wash.—Support for Ted Cruz remained strong Tuesday among the Washington delegates to the Republican National Convention, months after the Texas senator ended his presidential campaign.
For the second day, Washington delegates at the convention in Cleveland were involved in efforts to get Cruz on the GOP presidential ballot. On Tuesday, they circulated petitions seeking to put Cruz’s name in nomination alongside presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
Washington delegate Marc Perez, a Cruz supporter, said other delegates were trying to get the petitions signed but he refused to because Cruz “is out of the race.”
While he does not favor Trump, Perez said Trump “has fulfilled all requirements of a nominee and I respect that process.”
While Trump won the Washington GOP primary, Cruz forces at the state convention in Pasco were able to pack the 44-member state delegation to the national convention with Cruz supporters.
Washington delegates continued to seethe after Monday’s defeat in seeking a state-by-state roll call vote at the opening of the convention in Cleveland.
They pushed to hold a roll call on whether to change the party’s rules in ways that would take power from GOP leaders. That bid included an effort to let delegates back any candidate they want, instead of having to vote for Trump on the first ballot.
Delegate Eric Minor said the failure of the roll call effort on a voice vote “was a sham, pure and simple,” saying it was “a move more appropriate to communist Cuba or Stalinist Russia.”
Meanwhile, accusations of plagiarism in Melania Trump’s speech on Monday night reverberated with the Washington state delegation.
“On a whim I clicked on the link and watched it, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump side by side phrase for phrase. It was surreal. Clear plagiarism,” Minor wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “I almost don’t want to spend time on it but it is reflective of the fake, reality TV, carnival sideshow that would be a Trump presidency.”
