Colorado Republicans' proposed delegate selection rules changes empower presidential candidates
Plus more on the recent calendar and rules activity in Florida and Idaho
Remember the “totally corrupt, rigged system” Colorado Republicans ran in 2016?
You know, the one with Super Tuesday caucuses that went off without a presidential preference vote and national convention delegates that were later selected at district and state conventions in April. It was a unique system then. Republicans in the Centennial state opted to forgo the preference vote as a means of circumventing the new binding requirements handed down to state parties by the Republican National Committee for the 2016 cycle.
Only, the national party had the last laugh. Colorado Republican delegates to the national convention were bound in 2016. If they aligned with a presidential candidate on the paperwork to run as a delegate candidate at the district or state conventions and were subsequently selected, then those delegates were bound to the presidential candidates during the first ballot at the national convention.
Most of the delegates ultimately selected were aligned with Texas Senator Ted Cruz. That is what elicited the above quote from eventual Republican nominee, Donald Trump. And Colorado Republicans did not send an unbound delegation to the convention in Cleveland.
That history is important for 2024 because the national party did not stop trying to tweak the binding rules in order to prevent end arounds similar to those used by state parties in Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming in 2016. And that may, in part, be why there is a proposed new delegate selection system that has been released in Colorado.