Chrissie Thompson

The Cincinnati Enquirer

CINCINNATI — As the fight for the GOP nomination shifts to a battle to elect sympathetic delegates, Ted Cruz has the upper hand with John Kasich's team lagging but insisting he can close the gap.

People are lining up to go to the GOP convention to oppose Donald Trump — enough that Trump has moved to reorganize his campaign.

Last month, on ABC’s This Week, Trump called out Cruz for his campaign's success on this front, which falls completely within the Republican Party rules but which the GOP front-runner largely had ignored.

“I have a guy going around trying to steal people's delegates. This is supposed to be America, a free America,” Trump said. “What's going on in the Republican Party is a disgrace.

"I have so many more votes and so many more delegates," the billionaire said. "And, frankly, whoever at the end, whoever has the most votes and the most delegates should be the nominee.”

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Meanwhile, Kasich's campaign so far lacks many outright victories and sizable victories in rounding up sympathetic delegates in states that have voted for Trump or Cruz. Unlike Trump, the Kasich's campaign can't blame ignorance: The Ohio governor's only hope of becoming the nominee has long rested on emerging as the delegates' choice in Cleveland.

With a contested convention appearing almost inevitable, all three candidates have widened their campaigns to a strategy that one Cruz supporter dubbed "Plan B+." The goal is to pack July's Republican National Convention in Cleveland with people who will vote for them if balloting goes on long enough.

The candidates' game plan:

1. Screen potential delegates to try to determine their at-heart loyalties.

2. Get sympathetic people selected as delegates, including circulating delegate slates and lobbying participants at state conventions.

3. Woo delegates who already have been selected.

Cruz's upper hand starts with his campaign apparatus, which is the most extensive of the three candidates. Plus, the earliest states to select delegates are in areas where party insiders are sympathetic to Cruz's more conservative views.

And Cruz gained momentum recently among party insiders as the Republican establishment alternative to Trump.

Kasich's and Trump's campaigns are seeking to battle back, both recently hiring veterans of the GOP's most recent primary to come down to a convention — 1976, when then-President Gerald Ford had to pick up uncommitted delegates to defeat former California governor Ronald Reagan.

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The two candidates teamed up Saturday in Michigan to deny Cruz supporters delegate spots on powerful convention committees, according to a CNN report.

And former Ohio House speaker Jo Ann Davidson, a Kasich ally who co-chaired the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2009, has left her position with Kasich's political action committee and is assisting the campaign with preparations for a contested convention.

Kasich supporters say he has a shot, albeit long.

Just as Kasich points to later-voting states in the Northeast and West as fertile ground for his primary efforts, those states offer the best chance of getting an outsize portion of Kasich sympathizers elected as delegates, said Tom Ingram, a Tennessee politico advising the Kasich campaign.

Even though Cruz appears to have the upper hand now, delegates are all people who can change their minds, the Kasich team said. Leading up to the convention, they plan to point to poll after poll showing Kasich with the best chance of defeating the Democratic nominee in November.

Kasich's popularity in Ohio and the convention's location in Cleveland could help bring home the point that he could offer Republicans a chance to play in important swing states.

The very same delegate-picking process that appears to favor Cruz now will end up favoring Kasich, supporters said. Even delegates leaning toward Cruz now aren't devoted to him wholeheartedly.

They have grabbed hold of the idea that he can stop Trump, but they're open to Kasich, his supporters argue. Even Republicans who find Kasich too moderate on immigration, Medicaid expansion and Common Core would rather elect him than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

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Plus, a loss to Democrats in the presidential election could kick off a wave of losses in Congress.

Still, general election polls can be inaccurate this early in the process. Michael Dukakis polled ahead of George H.W. Bush in the spring and summer 1988, but Bush won the presidency handily that fall.

The assumption that delegates would consider only Trump, Cruz and Kasich overlooks the call from some Republicans for a new candidate to come in and seek to unite the party in Cleveland. The name of House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin comes up frequently, given his recent role in uniting tea party and establishment conservatives in Washington.

"I’ll be the first to say we’ve got a long shot, given the politics. But it’s a shot," said Ingram, the Kasich adviser. "At the end of the day, ... people are going to have to think seriously about which one of these guys can win in November."

Contributing: Fredrika Schouten, USA TODAY. Follow Chrissie Thompson on Twitter: @CThompsonENQ

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