Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday the GOP likely won’t change a rule that requires candidates to have 1,237 delegates to clinch the GOP presidential nomination.
“Having a plurality of the delegates means the field has the majority. You have to have the majority, it’s the United States of America,” Priebus said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The majority rules, and that is an American concept I can’t imagine us turning our backs on.”
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he should receive the party’s nomination if he has more delegates than his opponents, even if he hasn’t reached 1,237.
Trump has ramped up his attacks against the RNC in the past week, accusing party officials of “canceling the vote” in Colorado, which had a convention to award delegates instead of a primary of caucus.
Opponent Ted Cruz shut Trump out of delegates in that state, taking all 34. Similarly, the Texas senator won the vast majority of Wyoming’s delegates in its convention during the past month, adding another 23 to his delegate count.
Priebus maintained Sunday that state parties, not the RNC, decide their individual delegate processes, which have been finalized since last October.
“The process has been going on for a month in each of the state’s where there’s been a convention,” Priebus said. “It’s not a matter of party insiders. It’s a matter of 2,400 grassroots activists, and whatever they want to do, they can do.”