Ted Cruz got crushed in Virginia on primary day, but even Donald Trump’s forces believe he’s about to stuff the state’s national convention delegation full of supporters anyway.

Virginia GOP insiders with knowledge of the state’s delegate selection process expect Cruz backers to overrun this Saturday’s state convention and use their numbers to guarantee that the 13 statewide delegates to the national convention lean Cruz.


Their list is likely to include Ken Cuccinelli, a senior Cruz convention adviser and former Virginia attorney general. And it may come at the expense of other veteran Republicans seeking delegate slots – including former Gov. Jim Gilmore, who ran against Cruz in the GOP presidential primary, and Corey Stewart, director of the Trump campaign in Virginia.

“The Cruz campaign is mobilized in Virginia and they will likely dominate the convention floor on Friday and Saturday,” said a Virginia Republican central committee member familiar with the state convention process.

But Trump’s dominant position in the Republican primary after six straight blowout victories – from New York to this week’s sweep of Mid-Atlantic states – appears to have reordered the battle to secure delegates who would be loyal should the front-runner fail to clinch the nomination outright. So while Cruz’s mastery of the delegate selection process has given Trump’s team fits in the past, the response this time is a yawn.

“It takes a lot of the pressure off,” said Stewart, Trump’s Virginia director. “After [Tuesday] night, the campaign is convinced that we’re going to hit 1,237, so this will be a moot issue. There will be no second ballot.”

If Cruz makes inroads in the Virginia delegation, it’ll be the latest example of a pro-Trump state sending a Cruz-friendly delegation to Cleveland. Trump earned about 35 percent of the vote in the state’s March 1 primary, edging Marco Rubio’s 32 percent and more than doubling Cruz’s 17 percent. The result earned Trump 17 bound delegates on the first ballot at the convention to Cruz’s eight.

But Cruz has landed his allies in delegate slots bound to vote for Trump but likely to be free to vote their conscience on a second or third ballot – in South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Iowa and he’s poised to do the same in Virginia.

Already, he has secured five of six delegate slots in two Congressional districts that held local contests in recent weeks. (On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that one of those Cruz delegates – state Sen. Dick Black – has been in Syria heaping praise on the Assad government, which could create an uncomfortable dynamic for the Cruz campaign.)

Before Virginia convention-goers elect their national delegates, a Nominations Committee of party insiders will recommend a 13-member slate. The nomination panel includes appointees from state party chairman John Whitbeck, along with designees of the Virginia GOP’s 11 Congressional district leaders. They’ll select from among 80 applicants, including Cuccinelli, Stewart and Gilmore, who is also handling the Virginia GOP’s general election get-out-the-vote effort.

The slate then comes before the full state convention – a collection of GOP activists selected at local party meetings throughout the spring – for a final vote. If Cruz backers control the convention, they could reject the slate and force through another version packed with Cruz allies. The Nominations Committee may anticipate that outcome and propose a slate tilted toward Cruz supporters.

Gilmore told POLITICO he’s confident he’ll be selected as a delegate by virtue of his long commitment to the Virginia GOP. But he added that with Cruz’s motivation to force through a supportive slate, he’s “not taking anything for granted.”

Members of the nominations panel declined to discuss their work on the record, noting that they’re still developing their recommendations and will hold candidate interviews on Friday. But they emphasized that the process is intended to be a fair balance between the results of the March 1 primary, the makeup of the state convention and a recognition of the commitment of veteran Virginia GOP leaders.

“We’ll do our best to put together a slate that will pass,” said Jo Thoburn, one of the panel members. “We’ll see who’s in the room and what makes the most sense. Traditionally – and let me emphasize traditionally – our statewide elected are usually given seats on the slate. There’s nothing traditional this year.”

Graven Craig, the chairman of the committee, said the pan will “consider all merits of all the candidates who want to go represent us at the national convention.”

But one state GOP official familiar with the nomination panel noted that there’s only one self-declared Trump supporter on the panel – Renee Maxey of the state central committee – while several have backed Cruz or Rubio.

“There is no way that you’re not going to get a slate, in my opinion, that are predominantly Cruz people,” according to the official, who requested anonymity to relate conversations with party leaders.

But Stewart said he isn’t sweating.

“People are coming to accept the fact that Trump is going to be the nominee,” he said. “We don’t expect a Trump or a Cruz slate to be elected delegates to the national convention this coming weekend,” he continued. “We expect them to be unified.”\