Cruz looks for another Western victory in Wyoming

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is looking to pad his delegate count in Wyoming this weekend, where his campaign’s strong ground game could lead to a near sweep of the state’s delegates.

There are 14 delegates at stake at Saturday’s state convention. Wyoming, which awards its delegates via conventions instead of a primary or caucuses, has 26 delegates up for grabs, 12 of which were awarded in county GOP conventions last month.

{mosads}There, Cruz picked up nine delegates, Donald Trump scored one and Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s since dropped out, also earned one. The remaining delegate isn’t committed to a candidate.

Cruz is favored to win as the Wyoming GOP will finish assembling the delegates it will send to the Republican National Convention in July. Last weekend, Cruz swept a similar contest in Colorado, grabbing 34 delegates and shutting out his rivals Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

As voting began Saturday, Cruz, the only candidate who went to the convention, pleaded with the crowd to vote for his slate of delegates.

“We’ve got a slate of delegates who are committed to me in Cleveland,” Cruz said, according to ABC News. “If you don’t want to see Donald Trump as the nominee or hand (Hillary) Clinton the election, which is basically what a Trump nomination does … I ask you to please support the men and women on this slate.”

Meanwhile, things appeared to crumble for the Trump campaign in Wyoming Saturday as surrogate Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor, canceled her trip to stump for the candidate at the convention and his organization failed to fill a full slate of 14 preferred delegates, only coming up with six.

A senior Trump adviser has said the campaign hasn’t committed any resources to Wyoming.

“This process is favorable toward party-insider folks,” Senior Trump adviser Alan Cobb told the Associated Press. “When you don’t have a vote of the people, it just favors (Cruz).”

Those comments follow a week of indignation from Trump over a stinging loss in Colorado and a likely poor performance in Wyoming in which he accused GOP party leaders of “canceling the vote” in both states.

“Colorado had an ‘election’ without voters,” Trump wrote in a scathing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Friday. “Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.”

The RNC shot back soon after, saying delegate processes, which are left up to state parties, have been finalized since Oct. 1 of last year.

“The rules surrounding the delegate selection have been clearly laid out in every state and territory and while each state is different, each process is easy to understand for those willing to learn it,” RNC communications director Sean Spicer said in a memo Friday morning. “It ultimately falls on the campaigns to be up to speed on these delegate rules.”

Saturday’s convention comes as Cruz continues his effort of amassing enough delegates to keep Trump from reaching 1,237 before the national convention in July, forcing a contested convention. But Trump is looking ahead to a big home-state boost on Tuesday at New York’s primary.

Going into Saturday, Trump had 743 delegates to Cruz’s 545, according to the Associated Press delegate tracker.