Maine Gov. Paul LePage accused the Ted Cruz campaign Friday of going back on a promise to back a “unity slate” of the state’s delegates, a move that the Donald Trump supporter saw as “stabbing us in the back.”
In a statement, LePage said, “We reached a deal with Cruz’s national campaign to put up a unity slate that would honor the wishes of the thousands of Mainers who voted at caucus. But Cruz’s Northeast Political Director David Sawyer lied to us and broke the deal. Sawyer stabbed us in the back, reneged on the unity slate, and betrayed the people of Maine.”
The fight over every delegate is emblematic of the state of the 2016 race on the Republican side: Cruz’s campaign is pushing for every delegate he can collect to prevent Donald Trump from winning the GOP nomination out right and forcing a floor fight at the convention this summer. Both Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich need to win more delegates than are available in the remaining primary contests to win the GOP nomination on the first ballot.
Though he singled out Sawyer in his statement, LePage said the actions were emblematic of the Cruz campaign. “As we have seen throughout the country, Cruz’s national campaign is run by greedy political hoooligans.”
“I can’t stand by and watch as Cruz and the Republican Establishment forcibly overrule the votes of Mainers who chose Trump and Kasich,” he said. “I call on Senator Cruz to condemn Sawyer’s disrespectful and dishonest tactics in Maine.”
CNN’s has reached out to Cruz’s campaign for comment.
LePage also told conservative radio host Howie Carr that the Cruz team was working to remove the governor himself from Maine’s delegation to the national convention, according to a report in the Lewiston Sun-Journal. LePage, who along with his wife is running for a slot as a Donald Trump delegate, would normally be awarded the slot as a courtesy to the governor.
Ben Carson, a former 2016 candidate, was a speaker at the state convention Friday night and discussed the roiling dispute with reporters.
Saying “of course” LePage should be one of Maine’s delegates, Carson added, “What we have to recognize is that right now, the reason that the populists are so upset is they feel that they can’t trust government, can’t trust political parties — the last thing we need to be doing is engaging in subterfuge and things that aren’t transparent, and utilizing tricks and saying, ‘well this is the rules.'”
“Whether they are the rules or not, we need to be sensitive to the perception of the populists. And we need to be doing things in an open and fair way.”