 | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
The2016 Colorado Republican presidential caucuses took place in early April in the U.S. state ofColorado, as a part of theRepublican Party's series ofpresidential primaries ahead of the2016 presidential election. The Colorado contest consisted of a series of congressional district conventions on April 2, 7 and 8 and a state convention on April 9. A non-binding "beauty contest" caucus was held March 1 to coincide with theSuper Tuesday conventions.Ted Cruz won a majority of delegates in the convention.
In the2012 contest, Colorado held a caucus in order to determine delegate allocation, although the state had traditionally held a non-binding caucus.[citation needed] While thestate's Republican Party attempted to hold the traditional non-binding straw poll in 2016 as well, the national GOP prohibited states from holding non-binding straw polls in the 2016 election.[1] In addition, a bill in theColorado Senate to create a preference primary died in committee.[2]
Despite an early victory byTed Cruz in theIowa caucuses,Donald Trump was seen as making steady progress towards the Republican nomination at the time. Trump was victorious in 7 of the contests on March 1, with Cruz seen as the only viable threat to Trump after victories in his home state of Texas and 3 other March 1 contests.Marco Rubio performed worse than anticipated on March 1, taking onlyMinnesota. On March 8, two primaries and a caucus were held inHawaii,Michigan andMississippi. Despite a poll fromAmerican Research Group that showed Kasich leading Trump in Michigan, Trump won all three contests.[3][4]
On March 15's primaries, Donald Trump took four of the five contests-Florida,Illinois,Missouri andNorth Carolina. Trump however was defeated inOhio byJohn Kasich 2016 presidential campaign, losing all 66 of the state's delegates. Marco Rubio suspended his campaign after losing the Florida contest,[5] leaving just Cruz and Kasich in the race to oppose Trump.
On March 22, Trump won theArizona contest and all of its 58 pledged delegates, while Cruz capitalized on Trump's comments critical ofMitt Romney'sMormon faith[6] to take the state ofUtah and its 40 delegates.
On April 1–3, theNorth Dakota state convention was held. Capitalizing on a weak ground operation by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz claimed the support of 18 uncommitted delegates to just 1 for Trump.[7] This was considered especially important for Colorado, as neither state had a preference primary and delegates were assigned at state and district conventions.
The district conventions for the 1st and 6th districts took place on April 2. TheDistrict 1 slate included formerSecretary of StateScott Gessler, state Representative Justin Everett and Tony Sanchez, a candidate for state Senate. All three of the delegates were committed to Cruz- Gessler on the Cruz ticket and the other two on that of theRocky Mountain Gun Owners.[8] TheDistrict 6 slate includedJohn Carson, Randy Corporon and Regina Thomson. All three delegates were on the official Cruz slate and were endorsed byGun Owners of America.[8][9]
The district convention for the7th district took place on April 7. Cruz exploited a superior ground game to push forward his slate of Anil Mathai, Libby Szabo and George Athanasopoulos, although only Szabo is officially pledged for Cruz.[10][11] The 7th district was the first convention in which Trump supporters succeeded in assigning a slate of pledged delegates, although they were defeated by the Cruz supporters.[10]
The district conventions for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th districts took place on April 8. The3rd district,4th district and5th district district conventions all ended up with a full slate of Cruz-supporting delegates.[11] These included Melanie Sturm, Anita Stapleton and Brita Horn in the 3rd district, Perry Buck, Guy Short and Kendal Unruh in the 4th district and Joel Crank, Robin Coran and Donald Olmstead in the 5th district.[11] The2nd district convention appointed one Cruz delegate, Robert Woodward, and two unpledged delegates, Michael McAlpine and Marty Neilson.[11] The conventions were seen to be a large boost to Cruz, and Trump's sloppy organization was seen as a significant obstacle he would have to overcome in order to win the nomination.[12]
The state convention took place on April 9. Ted Cruz spoke directly at the state convention, whereas Donald Trump received an invitation but did not attend and John Kasich sent formerGovernor of New HampshireJohn Sununu to speak on his behalf.[12][13] Cruz took all 13 delegates at the state convention, completing a sweep of all 34 delegates in Colorado as well as the 3 unpledged RNC delegates (although 7 of them were officially uncommitted, they were all seen as leaning for Cruz.)[13]
| Poll source | Date | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quinnipiac University[14] Margin of error: ± 4.5% Sample size: 474 | November 11–15, 2015 | Ben Carson 25% | Marco Rubio 19% | Donald Trump 17% | Ted Cruz 14%, Carly Fiorina 5%, Rand Paul 3%, Jeb Bush 2%, Chris Christie 1%, John Kasich 1%, Mike Huckabee 1%, Bobby Jindal 1%, Lindsey Graham 0%, Rick Santorum 0%, George Pataki 0%, Jim Gilmore 0%, DK/NA 11% |
| Suffolk University[15] Margin of error: ± ?% Sample size: 205 | September 2014 | Rand Paul 12.25% | Paul Ryan 10.29% | Chris Christie/Mike Huckabee 8.33% | Scott Walker 7.84%, Marco Rubio 7.35%, Jeb Bush 6.37%, Bobby Jindal 5.88%, Ted Cruz 5.39%, Rick Perry 5.39%, Rick Santorum 2.45%, John Huntsman 1.47%, John Kasich 0.49%, Refused 0.49%, Other 1.96% |
| Magellan Strategies[16] Margin of error: ± 6% Sample size: 270 | April 14–15, 2014 | Rand Paul 17% | Mike Huckabee 16% | Ted Cruz 14% | Chris Christie 12%, Marco Rubio 10%, Jeb Bush 9%, Scott Walker 8%, John Kasich 2%, Undecided 12% |
| Public Policy Polling[17] Margin of error: ± 6.1% Sample size: 255 | March 13–16, 2014 | Ted Cruz 17% | Mike Huckabee 15% | Chris Christie 14% | Rand Paul 10%, Paul Ryan 10%, Jeb Bush 8%, Marco Rubio 8%, Scott Walker 5%, Bobby Jindal 2%, Other/Undecided 11% |
| Public Policy Polling[18] Margin of error: ± 5.2% Sample size: 355 | December 3–4, 2013 | Ted Cruz 18% | Chris Christie 17% | Rand Paul 16% | Marco Rubio 10%, Paul Ryan 9%, Jeb Bush 8%, Scott Walker 6%, Bobby Jindal 3%, Rick Santorum 2%, Other/Undecided 11% |
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Actual delegate count | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bound | Unbound | Total | |||
| Ted Cruz | 0 | 0.0% | 17 | 4 | 21 |
| Donald Trump | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| John Kasich | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Marco Rubio(withdrawn) | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ben Carson(withdrawn) | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Uncommitted | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unprojected delegates: | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Total: | 0 | 100.00% | 17 | 4 | 21 |
| Source:The Green Papers | |||||
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Actual delegate count | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bound | Unbound | Total | |||
| Ted Cruz | 0 | 0.0% | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| Donald Trump | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| John Kasich | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Marco Rubio(withdrawn) | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ben Carson(withdrawn) | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Uncommitted | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unprojected delegates: | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Total: | 0 | 100.00% | 13 | 3 | 16 |
| Source:The Green Papers | |||||
The Colorado result was considered to be a discouraging result for the Trump campaign, an encouraging result for "Stop Trump" forces and a strong predictor of how a contested convention would result.[12] Further discouraging results for Trump came in theWisconsin primary, which was held during the Colorado district conventions. Trump's lack of organization was apparent in the fact that his campaign surrogates failed to create a delegate slate until the third district convention.[10] A contested convention would be similar to a district convention in the need for a strong ground game and winning over unbound delegates, similar to the Colorado process.
.jpg)
