Donald Trump's allies passed a measure to affirm that delegates are unambiguously bound to the results of primaries and caucuses. | Getty Never Trump movement fails twice on key RNC votes Never before have things looked so bleak for those looking to unseat the presumptive GOP nominee.

Donald Trump’s allies on the national GOP convention Rules Committee crushed a proposal Thursday aimed at dumping Trump from the top of the Republican ticket — and they sealed its fate further by passing an amendment to ensure his nomination.

The proposal affirms that delegates are unambiguously bound to the results of primaries and caucuses — meaning they can’t break with the will of voters and Dump Trump at the convention. It passed 87 to 12, and its passage was the first official sign that anti-Trump forces lack the votes to block Trump’s path to the nomination.


“It’s over, folks,” said Steve Scheffler, an Iowa delegate and member of the Republican National Committee. “Let’s get behind our nominee right now.”

Minutes later, delegates easily crushed -- by a similarly large margin -- the long-touted anti-Trump measure to permit delegates to invoke a “conscience clause” to break from Trump and select another nominee. Lead proponent of the conscience effort, Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, appealed for support but saw the writing on the wall after the pro-Trump vote. She did earn the support of Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a top ally of Ted Cruz.

"At the end of the day ,we have to remember that it’s important for presidential nominees to win at two levels,” Lee said at the meeting. “I hope that whoever our nominee is going to be this time will win over the delegates. But rules like this are not going to help them."

His remarks drew a sharp rebuttal from Texas delegate Steve Munisteri. "The only way to advance the conservative cause is through a strong Republican Party that is united to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in the fall. Sir, there is nobody else running for president in this party than Donald Trump."

The pro-Trump measure was also intended to also cut off a backdoor strategy for anti-Trump forces that harnessed an apparent conflict in the party rules to ignore a requirement that convention delegates be bound to the results of primaries and caucuses.

The failure of the pro-Trump measure’s opponents to cobble together 28 votes to reject the measure signals that efforts to unbind delegates are doomed. It takes 28 votes in the rules committee to advance a measure to the floor of the convention in the form of a minority report, a move that would let all 2,472 delegates at the convention vote on a potential unbinding measure.

In the end, the anti-Trump measure failed on a voice vote. Sensing certain and decisive defeat, delegates backing the measure declined to request a recorded vote.

Later Thursday, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort gloated on Twitter about the victory: "Anti-Trump people get crushed at Rules Committee. It was never in doubt: Convention will honor will of people & nominate @realdonaldtrump."