HARRISONBURG, Va. (AP) — Jim Gilmore can’t catch a break.

The former presidential hopeful — who received only a handful of votes in early primaries and was often kept out of the second tier so-called undercard debates — was denied a spot Saturday as a Virginia GOP delegate to the national convention this summer.

Republicans at the Virginia state convention rejected Gilmore’s bid to be one of the state’s 13 at-large delegates. The rejection from his own party insiders comes a few months after Gilmore’s poor showing in this year’s presidential contest.

Gilmore had hoped his GOP pedigree as a former Virginia governor and chairman of the Republican National Committee would earn him a spot as a state delegate.

But Gilmore has not declared which GOP presidential nominee he would support in a contested convention. Only delegates who had pledged support for either GOP front-runner Donald Trump or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign were picked.

Trump opponents hoping to push the race to a contested national convention where each delegate can wield outsized power in picking the Republican nominee. And Cruz’s campaign, whose supporters have large sway in the Republican Party of Virginia, wanted to lock up most if not all of the delegates spots.

That left little room for undecided delegates like Gilmore, who said he doesn’t take the rejection personally.

“It’s a power play,” said Gilmore. He added that he’s been asked by the state party chairman to help lead a get-out-the-vote effort for the party in the November election.

Cruz supporters won 10 spots and Trump’s won 3.

Gilmore, a former Army intelligence officer, briefly ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2007 and lost a U.S. Senate bid in 2008 to another former Virginia governor, Mark Warner.

Gilmore did poorly in this year’s presidential race before dropping out in February. He won only 12 votes in the Iowa caucus and 133 votes in the New Hampshire primary. But Gilmore said he still has a nationwide following and that he still plans to go the national convention even if he’s not a delegate.

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