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In the shadow of Donald Trump's latest offending comments, the call for "dumping Trump" at the GOP convention is gaining momentum within Republican delegate ranks.

"The delegates are the grass roots of the Republican Party," said A.J. Spiker, past chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, former RNC member and a former advisor to Rand Paul's presidential campaign. "They make up everything from farmers, ranchers, retired folks, every piece of the electorate. It's not top party brass. There is a large group of delegates — more than a majority — that would want someone (other than Trump) as the GOP presidential candidate."



Spiker's tweet asking for a "Patriot" to stand up at the convention in Cleveland in late July sparked a lot of conversation on Twitter. "It is ripe for this cycle to overtake Trump." Spiker told CNBC. Since Trump's comments on June 2 about federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an American of Mexican heritage who is overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University, the number of people using the #nevertrump hashtag has increased 8 percent, according to Spredfast Intelligence.



Trump attempted twice to put out the backlash firestorm in a statement and in a speech on Tuesday, but some delegates told CNBC the damage is done.

One delegate, who is on the RNC's all-powerful credentials committee and who spoke on a condition of anonymity, told CNBC: "Until all the delegates are validated by the credentials committee, he is not the official nominee. We have to make sure the all delegates are valid. Then you have Mr. Trump saying his campaign was going to challenge some of the delegates. This is far from over. He is not the official GOP nominee." Delegate challenges are nothing new at GOP conventions. In 2012, Ron Paul lost his delegates from Maine as a result of delegate challenges from the credentials committee. Republican insiders say losing those delegates hurt Paul's nomination chances.

The Trump campaign did not return a CNBC request for comment about the delegates' concerns.

Bette Grande, an unbound delegate and former chairman of the Ted Cruz campaign in North Dakota, stressed that emotions need to be kept in check. "Cooler heads prevail. We do not allow the media to pick the candidates," she said. "It's up to the delegates. The process is not over. It finishes at the convention. We are all unbound."

"We vote our conscience and until then we have to wait to see what the credentials, platform and rules committee lays out the rules, we have to wait," Grande added. North Dakota unbound delegate "Curly [Haugland] has a legitimate point that we are all unbound. Let's have this play out. I have not made my commitment one way or the other and it will stay that way until the convention." Haugland, a rules committee member, says interest in his newly released free book "Unbound" has spiked since the latest flareup. "It's getting around quite a bit and delegates are inquiring routinely. There is confusion out there that the existing rules need to be changed to nominate another candidate other than Trump. The rules are fine as they are, delegates are free and unbound to vote for whomever they want on the first ballot. But there is a problem — there are presently no alternatives."



