Donald Trump’s campaign anticipates the billionaire will win the Republican presidential nomination with more than 1,400 delegates on the first ballot at the upcoming GOP convention, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
A memo that was reportedly sent to surrogates shortly after Trump won the New York primary Tuesday night describes the Republican front-runner as the “prohibitive favorite” in the GOP race and suggests he’ll surpass the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination at the convention.
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Trump is expected to win 90 delegates from his big victory in New York, bringing him to around 845 delegates overall.
“The [Ted] Cruz spin machine produces more lies than anything else,” the memo, which the Post obtained, read. “Our projections call for us to accumulate over 1,400 delegates, and thus a first ballot nomination win in Cleveland.”
With his current delegate haul, Trump would need a strong showing in upcoming states to reach 1,237 votes, much less 1,400.
Trump has added several new staffers to his campaign team since the end of March who’ve been tasked with ensuring he has enough delegates to secure the nomination outright or enough stacked in his favor to keep Cruz from becoming the nominee on a second ballot.
According to the memo, the campaign has been “building out our campaign staff to make sure we leave no stone unturned and that we can win this thing on the up and up — not through a rigged set of rules.”
The memo also provided Trump surrogates with additional talking points that describe the GOP primary process as “rigged” and blame the Republican National Committee for catering to the “donor class.”
“The RNC has a lot to answer for, as do those who are part of the donor class and the party establishment,” the memo read. “This movement scares the hell out of them and the people scare them, so they will do whatever they can to keep power.”
Reports of the Trump campaign’s internal projections come just hours after Cruz told CBS Radio, “Nobody is getting 1,237 [delegates].”
“We are headed to a contested convention at this point,” the Texas senator said.
Cruz trails Trump by nearly 300 delegates, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich has collected just 147, not including the three delegates he picked up Tuesday in New York.
