The Republican Party will officially crown Donald Trump as its 2016 presidential nominee Tuesday evening, capping a raucous primary process that has divided the GOP.
At the same time, forces that oppose his nomination have been working delegates Tuesday to organize a protest to voice their displeasure with Trump and the process that brought him to this moment.
An effort is underway to officially place the name of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz into nomination as well, multiple sources close to the operations say. Cruz is the only other candidate who qualifies under the rules requiring candidates to get a majority of delegates in eight states in order to be in contention for the nomination.
But the air appeared to be going out of the effort Tuesday afternoon, and Cruz’s inner circle is adamantly opposed to putting the senator’s name in nomination, a senior Cruz adviser tells CNN.
“We’re not encouraging it. We’re actually trying to stop it,” the adviser said.
This person adds there’s no chance Cruz shows up Tuesday and gives a speech, noting that Cruz already has a speaking slot Wednesday night.
Efforts to put Cruz’s name in nomination raises the specter of a second straight day of floor protests highlighting the divisions in the GOP and breaking the peace of the convention, which is normally a tightly scripted affair to present the nominee and party in the best possible light.
Trump’s victory is not in doubt. The party’s rules approved Monday make clear that delegates are bound by primary results if their state requires it. Trump has roughly 300 more delegates than he needs to clinch the nomination and will officially be the party’s nominee once 1,237 of the delegates cast their ballot in his favor.
Trump’s name will be put into nomination by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, an early supporter of the businessman, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said at a briefing Tuesday morning. The nomination will be seconded with speeches by fellow early supporters New York Rep. Chris Collins and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster.
The roll call will proceed alphabetically, with states announcing their votes for Trump, Cruz and the other candidates along the way. Certain states will also pass on the first go-around in order to give Trump’s home state of New York the honor of putting the real estate mogul over the top.
Trump’s roll call will be followed by the nomination and vote for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as the vice presidential nominee.
Along with putting Cruz’s name into nomination, another symbolic move would be for delegates to announce their votes for other candidates besides Trump. Regardless of any such announcement from a delegation, GOP rules make clear that the secretary of the convention must count votes as they are meant to be cast, and delegates can request that each member of their state be polled when the vote is taken. Therefore, if there are 20 votes bound for Trump from a state, the convention secretary will record 20 votes, even if the delegation announces otherwise.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, asked about the effort to put Cruz’s name in nomination, said “I am not worried” about it, because it would not change the process or the outcome even if it succeeded.
South Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said he has only heard about the pro-Cruz push from journalists.
“I haven’t heard anything about it and I would,” Meadows said. “I was a big Cruz guy.”
Should there be any disruption, it would be the second day of floor protests at the convention.
The Monday afternoon session briefly devolved into chaos as the rules were adopted. Groups fighting the rules on two separate fronts had turned in a petition signed by enough delegates to require an embarrassing and protracted roll call vote on the rules themselves.
But the RNC and Trump campaign whipped the vote during a brief delay in proceedings and enough delegates pulled out that the effort failed — sparking a roar of boos and chants of “roll call vote” from angry delegates who stood on their chairs and shouted their displeasure.
The RNC and Trump campaign do not want a similar display to erupt during Trump’s final coronation. While the RNC could allow the delegates to place Cruz in nomination as an olive branch, they could just as easily find a number of delegates with a sudden change of heart at the last minute again.
“They will say they have the signatures, and we’ll see if they do,” said CNN contributor Mike Shields, who is a former RNC chief of staff.