Donald Trump waves to members of the audience while appearing at an NBC Town Hall at the Today Show on April 21, in New York City. | Getty New York's GOP leaders fall in behind Trump

ALBANY — State GOP chairman Ed Cox has fallen in behind favorite son Donald Trump, but said the delegates New York sends to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland should focus on picking a candidate who knows how to win.

Cox and Jennifer Saul-Rich, both of whom sit on the Republican National Committee, announced their endorsements of Trump on Thursday. Cox said Trump “has shown remarkable political skill that has energized Americans who have felt disenfranchised by a government that hasn't worked for them,” and Saul-Rich said it would take Trump’s “vast private-sector experience to fix our nation's problems.”


Their statements come at the head of a process where, over the next several weeks, members of the Republican State Committee will meet in 27 caucuses to determine who actually becomes a delegate. Trump won all but a handful of New York’s 95 delegates on Tuesday, but they are only bound to vote for him on the first ballot.

“If all the delegates remain pledged throughout the convention, you would have a deadlock forever. So you have to change at some point and become a judgmental process,” Cox told POLITICO New York on Tuesday, several hours before Trump cleaned up in the Empire State’s primary. “You want people involved in that who have experience getting elected themselves or electing people, [people] involved in the political process. The purpose of the convention is to produce … someone who has Republican credentials and is going to win.”

Trump’s victory in New York made it mathematically impossible for his closest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to clinch the nomination on the first ballot, he himself still has not amassed the 1,237 supporters he’ll need to avoid a contested convention.

As he has before, Trump blasted the “crooked system” by which delegates could contradict the will of their state’s primary voters at the convention.

“It’s really nice to win the delegates with the votes,” Trump said during his Tuesday victory speech. “Nobody should be given delegates — which is a ticket to victory, and it’s not a fair ticket, and even though we’re leading by a lot and we can’t be caught, it’s impossible to catch us — nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting. That’s what’s going to happen … you watch, the people aren’t going to stand for it.”

Out of tune with his public denunciations, Trump has sent top aides to Florida to meet with members of the RNC, all of whom get to vote at the convention. Trump’s allies in New York also are working to install stalwart supporters into delegate slots that normally go to established and elected figures, some of whom have endorsed Trump but others of whom are skeptical of his candidacy to various degrees.

Until recently, Trump allies like Carl Paladino believed Cox was in the latter group. Paladino responded to the chairman’s endorsement by welcoming him into the fold.

“I look forward to working with Ed in the weeks ahead to assure our state's delegation stands equally as strong for Donald Trump as our voters did on Tuesday,” Paladino said in an email.

