Donald Trump and R.N.C. Crack Down on Rebelling Delegates

Supporters at a rally for Donald J. Trump this month. “My supporters are tremendously loyal to me,” Mr. Trump said, adding that they “would not stand for” any effort at the convention to deny him the nomination.CreditChet Strange for The New York Times

From, The New York Times.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee are moving quickly and aggressively to head off the fledgling effort to stage a revolt at their convention next month in Cleveland, hoping to spare the party an embarrassing spectacle that could deeply wound the presumptive nominee.

They are employing hard-nosed tactics, warning delegates that attempting to undermine Donald J. Trump’s claim to the nomination violates party rules, and threatening to deny speaking slots to Republicans they deem disloyal for not backing him.

“If there’s no endorsement, then I would not invite them to speak,” Mr. Trump said in an interview, adding that former rivals like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio should not expect to address the convention if they continue to withhold their support.

The R.N.C. and the Trump campaign are also installing loyal party stalwarts in key party positions to help ensure that they maintain control of the convention if rogue delegates attempt a disruption. And they are trying to discredit Republicans who are advocating an interpretation of party rules that would allow delegates to vote for anyone they want on the first ballot.

Their moves are intended to buttress Mr. Trump as he confronts a faction of Republicans who, emboldened by his recent missteps, say their efforts to stage a convention coup are gaining more support. In the last week, prominent Republicans like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin have breathed new life into these efforts by saying that delegates should be free to follow their consciences instead of being committed to back a candidate.

Stopping the presumptive nominee at the convention — one who won 37 states and has an indisputable majority of delegates — would be an extraordinary affront and seems improbable at this point. But even if the anti-Trump forces fall short, the scene that threatens to unfold on national television would be an unwelcome one for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party: a band of angry, rebelling delegates trying to seize control of the convention and wrest away the nomination.

Mr. Trump insisted in an interview last week that his opponents would fail to derail his nomination. “You mean to tell me we’re going to get the largest vote in the history of the Republican primaries,” he said, “and now the same people that either didn’t run or got beaten in a landslide are going to try and back-end?”

“My supporters are tremendously loyal to me,” he added. “They would not stand for it.”

Such a hard-line approach would seem to create grim prospects for any kind of reconciliation with Mr. Cruz, who will command more than 500 delegates when the convention begins in three weeks. And to deny Mr. Cruz a speech — or for that matter Mr. Kasich, the governor of the state that is hosting the convention — would be a rare rebuke. Speeches by the runners-up are usually a prime-time draw at any convention, and usually a foregone conclusion for an event that is supposed to convey party unity and good will.

But the speaking arrangements may not be entirely up to Mr. Trump. Because Mr. Cruz won a majority of delegates in at least eight states, he would probably be able to have his name entered into nomination, guaranteeing him a speech under party rules.

For its part, the committee is leaving little to chance as it works closely with the Trump campaign in plotting the mechanics of the convention. The two have hired about a dozen operatives to ensure that the nominating vote goes off without a hitch. Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committeechairman, has dispatched associates to reach out to first-time delegates.

And lawyers for the committee are advising state party leaders how to beat back the anti-Trump efforts, prompting party chairs from Minnesota to Washington State to issue admonitions to delegates who may be thinking of breaking their obligation to vote for Mr. Trump. Party officials are now gently reminding delegates that in the process of applying to be a delegate, many of them signed statements vowing to vote for the candidate to which they were pledged.

Mr. Trump has the pledged support of more than 1,500 delegates, the vast majority of whom were awarded to him based on party rules that allot the most delegates to the winner of each primary and caucus.

The R.N.C. pushback has been strong in states that Mr. Trump lost, like Iowa and Minnesota. “The proposed ‘conscience exemption’ does not change anything for Minnesota, especially given each national delegate’s/alternate’s signed pledge,” a message to Minnesota delegates from state party leaders said last week.

Party officials are also working to thwart delegates who are encouraging a “conscience vote” based on the notion that Republican rules cannot bind anyone to any candidate. Freeing the delegates, known as unbinding, has been promoted for years by Curly Haugland, a committee official from North Dakota.

Yet as his ideas gained currency, Mr. Haugland found that committee officials were sending out emails attempting to discredit him — like one forwarded to him by a delegate friend that read in part: “Curly Haugland is the originator of the ideas that are flooding the inboxes of delegates nationwide. He is the North Dakota National Committeeman who every four years challenges the Convention Rules — and loses.”

“It’s a total smear campaign,” Mr. Haugland said in an interview.

But the anti-Trump forces are determined to push their cause. One activist, Steve Lonegan, who directed Mr. Cruz’s losing campaign in New Jersey, is now helping a political action committee that advocates letting delegates vote their consciences.

The group, Courageous Conservatives, started running a radio ad in Iowalast week that urged people to call Steve Scheffler, a national committeeman in Iowa who is trying to quash the revolt, and demand “to let our delegates pick the best Republican to fight for our conservative values.” Another group called Delegates Unbound has begun a nationwide ad campaign that implores, “Vote your conscience.”

12 members of the convention’s rules committee, which could ultimately resolve the unbinding issue, said in an interview that he did not even vote for Mr. Trump in the Iowa caucuses. But he believes the will of the voters should be honored at the convention.

“Don’t bellyache to me that you don’t like the process. It is what it is,” Mr. Scheffler said, noting that he did not plan to check his voice mail until after the convention. “The voters have spoken,” he added. “Why would 112 people say, ‘We don’t care what you did, we’re going to set our own rules?’”

One major hurdle the anti-Trump forces face is that the rules committee will be full of delegates like Mr. Scheffler, Republicans loyal to the party committee who might not have wanted Mr. Trump as the nominee but are nonetheless determined to keep the convention from turning into a debacle. Adding to those hurdles, Mr. Priebus has put in trusted loyalists to run the convention rules committee while working with the Trump campaign and state parties to make sure the most important committees are not stacked with unpredictable delegates.

In that sense, the motives of the Trump campaign and the Republican Party have aligned after months of mutual mistrust. While party people are not necessarily Trump people, and Trump people are not necessarily party people, the two sides are now locked in a marriage of convenience. Mr. Trump is trying to protect his nomination, while the party is trying to protect the integrity of its nominating process.

Peter Feaman, who will serve on the convention rules committee and has a long history with the party, including serving as Florida’s party chairman, called the talk of ditching Mr. Trump “a lot of sound and fury.”

“We’re going to ride the Trump bandwagon into 1600 Penn Ave., or into oblivion,” he added. “One or the other.”