Trump backers flood Clark County GOP convention; chairman resigns

Two shifts were clear coming out of the Clark County Republican Convention at a Rio ballroom today: a shift in the party’s base and a shift in its leadership.

Throughout the election process, political observers have questioned the resolve of Trump supporters and whether their frustration with the status quo would manifest itself in turnout at traditional party events such as caucuses and conventions. Like the caucuses, Saturday was another answer to that question in Clark County, where supporters of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump turned out en masse, by far outnumbering supporters of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was in Las Vegas speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition.

In interviews, many of those Trump supporters said February was their first caucus and Saturday, their first convention. Even though many said they are dissatisfied with the Republican Party as a whole, they were welcomed into the Clark County Republican Party as members of the party’s central committee — which is open to all registered Republicans who apply.

“I haven’t been into politics much over the years,” said Trump supporter Cathy Willoughby, from Las Vegas. “But the way the economy has gotten over the past 10 years, I’ve wanted to get more educated on it.”

Saturday also marked a shift for the Clark County Republican Party with the resignation of its chairman, Ed Williams.

Williams announced his resignation in an email late Saturday afternoon as the convention was winding down, citing a fundamental shift in the party’s composition since he was elected chairman last year.

“Elections matter, and the new board very clearly had a different direction than I had,” Williams said. “The people that voted for me back in July — the party has shifted a bit. It didn’t make sense for me to continue in light of that.”

Though Williams was present throughout the day’s proceedings, the convention was chaired by Rob Tyree, a Republican who ran against Williams for chair in 2015. On Thursday, it came to light that Tyree had filed an ethics complaint against Williams.

Tyree said he had stepped up as the convention’s chair when he noticed Williams was not in the room, saying there was a “complete leadership vacuum.” He added that he thought the tension between Williams and other party members — and the state party — had been building throughout the caucus-planning process. (In October, Williams resigned from the state party’s executive committee.)

Mike Radza, the vice chairman for the county party, will serve as chairman pro tem until a new chair can be elected at the party’s next central committee meeting in May.

“I will commit to our state chairman that we will now have 17 counties in this state that will now work with the state party,” Radza said.

The day also got off to a late start, with the final delegate report being read after noon, allowing other party business to begin. The major delay stemmed from a bottleneck with the credentialing committee, which heard more than 50 people’s appeals over their delegate status.

The convention stalled until those appeals were heard and the final report on the number of delegates was presented to and accepted by the convention body.

“I would say that given the problems experienced throughout the caucus process and up to today, I can understand why someone might be frustrated with the leadership of the party,” said Ryan Hamilton, deputy state director for the Cruz campaign.

Deputy chairman of the convention Jordan Ross called the convention “an outrageous, unacceptable debacle” and, amid the early morning delays, promised to “get this done and get some justice to it.”

Williams, meanwhile, called the delays “expected convention stuff.”

There had been some concerns in the days leading up to the convention about who would be approved as delegates. The Cruz campaign specifically raised concerns Saturday morning under the impression that anyone who went before the credentialing committee — even those it rejected — would be approved as delegates.

Hamilton said most of his concerns dissipated after he sat in on three of the cases and said it seemed like the credentials committee was doing its job.

Delegate battles have been particularly tense on the Republican side, especially amid rumors of a brokered convention if Trump fails to reach the 1,237-delegate threshold needed to secure the Republican nomination at the first vote of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.

Of Nevada’s 30 delegates, 14 will be required to cast their vote for Trump, seven for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, six for Cruz, two for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and one for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. (There’s a stipulation in Nevada’s rules that allows Rubio and Carson delegates to release their delegates because they’ve dropped out of the race, but it’s not yet clear whether that will happen.)

But those requirements only stick for the first vote. If Trump fails to reach that delegate threshold, the delegates are free to vote for whomever they'd like.

That’s why the county convention is important.

It’s the second in a three-step caucus-convention process to choose delegates to represent Nevada at the convention in Cleveland. The first was the February caucuses, where caucus-goers elected delegates to the county convention. The county convention delegates, in turn, were charged with selecting delegates to attend the state convention in May. The final step is the state convention, where delegates will select the 30 delegates who will represent Nevada at the national convention.

Who those 30 delegates support matters if they are unbound. That’s why both the Trump and Cruz camps want as many of their supporters as possible in the room at the state convention when those delegates are picked.

But of the more than 3,200 delegates elected on caucus day, only 1,209 showed up at the county convention Saturday. County officials had initially projected about 2,200 to 2,500 delegates would show up.

Up to 2,005 delegates can be sent from the county convention to the state convention, and typically anyone who applies to be a delegate can be one, because there are rarely that many state delegates. Convention attendees Saturday had a chance to fill out paperwork to self-nominate for the state convention.

A motion put forward to only allow county convention delegates to become state delegates failed.

The Cruz campaign remains concerned about that self-nomination process, likening it to making it to the Final Four without having to play in the Sweet Sixteen.

“There’s no evidence they were at their precinct meeting,” Hamilton said. “No verification process is in play.”

Still, Hamilton said that he was encouraged by the leadership of the convention today.

“It’s given me some confidence we’ll be treated fairly,” Hamilton said.

Trump’s state director Charles Munoz, meanwhile, said the day had gone “extremely well” and that he was optimistic about the state convention in May.

“We want to have a full, sold Trump slate and get our supporters to Cleveland,” Munoz said. “We’re just going to maintain the momentum we have here from the caucus.”