President Trump’s campaign has been quietly working to avoid a possible renomination fight on the floor of the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Trump’s reelection team has created a “delegates and party organization” arm responsible for liaising with GOP state party bodies, according to senior campaign officials on Monday. Doing so has allowed the Trump camp to be involved in state party chair elections and rule changes before the states had to submit their delegate selection plans to the Republican National Committee last week. For example, rules that governed the Massachusetts Republican Party’s delegation selection process allowed for the overrepresentation of small numbers of votes.
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“We do care about who’s seated on all the chairs on the convention floor in Charlotte next year, and we care about that because we care about ensuring a predetermined outcome at the convention,” one staffer said, referring to the event set to take place from Aug. 24 to Aug. 27 in North Carolina. “A properly executed convention vote is the single most important thing a campaign can do to put their candidate on the pathway to reelection.”
The Trump campaign downplayed efforts to prevent or control primary election and caucuses in states such as South Carolina, Nevada, and Kansas, which critics argue protect the president from challengers such as Bill Weld, Mark Sanford, and Joe Walsh. It also dismissed concerns that stifling dissenting opinions risked disenfranchising members of the party, asserting the rules “now more accurately reflect the will of Republican primary voters.”
