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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during a interview with POLITICO Sept. 11, 2015, in Washington. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO McConnell 'increasingly optimistic' about a second ballot in Cleveland

Mitch McConnell is “increasingly optimistic that there actually may be a second ballot" at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, the Senate majority leader told a Kentucky ABC affiliate over the weekend.

If no presidential candidate is able to secure a majority on the first ballot in Cleveland, delegates will vote again — and more delegates became unbound and thus able to vote freely with every subsequent ballot.

That could be bad news for Donald Trump, who has struggled in state after state to secure delegates' loyalties on a hypothetical second ballot. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, has racked up commitments with a sophisticated, aggressive delegate ground came. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich is banking entirely on winning at a contested convention, as it is mathematically impossible for him to win a majority of delegates.

McConnell has made little secret of his disdain for Trump and Cruz, who has called him a "liar" — but he didn't tip his hand when asked if he thought a candidate who isn't currently running could win.

“That’ll be up to the delegates,” the Kentucky senator said, adding, “This notion that there’s some group of people in Washington who can handpick somebody and deliberate — that’s just not true. If there were such a group, I’d probably be a part of it, but there isn’t a group."