AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s gang of Republican National Convention delegates didn’t affect Mitt Romney’s presidential nomination in 2012, but supporters of insurgent hopeful Ron Paul got a lot of attention when they walked out after delegates were stripped.
It isn’t shaping up the same way four years later, even as Republicans prepare to nominate Donald Trump over Maine’s objection at the convention, even as some Maine delegates may coalesce behind the quixotic “Never Trump” movement to dump him as the nominee.
In the March caucuses, Republicans in Maine backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s main rival for the nomination. Cruz’s well-heeled team stormed the April state convention to install 19 of 23 supporters as national delegates.
At that time, Cruz backers were holding out hope that Trump would fall short of the required number of delegates to win the nomination outright. But he didn’t, the party infrastructure has now rallied around him, and Cruz has a speaking spot at the convention.
Gov. Paul LePage, a Trump endorser, isn’t going to the convention.
Much has been made of the “Never Trump” movement, even though the New York City billionaire has already won more than enough delegates to get the nomination.
It was dealt a massive blow by the national convention’s Rules Committee on Thursday, when a push to “unbind” delegates on the first convention ballot failed overwhelmingly. That makes a floor fight more difficult, but anti-Trump delegates have said they’ll have one.
Earl Bierman, the chief of staff to Republicans in the Maine House of Representatives who helped lead Cruz’s Maine effort, isn’t excited by Trump or the convention, saying he’d rather stay at his coastal home in Sorrento and “I want to go” to Cleveland “like I want a hole in the head.”
But he said any challenge is unlikely to go anywhere and it’d be unfair to change the rules last-minute.
“If Cruz had been successful, I would be really pissed just like the Trump people are,” Bierman said. “I’m sticking with the same set of rules. I don’t want any changes, just speaking for myself.”
But Cruz found his support in the Maine caucuses from deeply religious voters reticent about Trump’s amorphous views and bombastic style. The Christian Civic League of Maine highlighted his inconsistent stances on abortion over the years that are “concerning to value voters here.”
One of those voters is Cruz delegate Jennifer Newendyke of Litchfield, who said Trump’s past praise of Planned Parenthood worried her as an anti-abortion voter.
She said while it’s “tough to justify … changing things at this stage,” it’s “kind of a unique situation” with Trump and “I wouldn’t really be opposed to that.”
Other Maine delegates will likely join, she said.
“I think it would be helpful for people to at least feel like they’re being heard, if that’s what it takes,” Newendyke said.
But National Committeeman Alex Willette of Lewiston, a Trump supporter on an exclusive team to head off any revolt, called the “Never Trump” effort “well overblown” and Trump a candidate who has “truly excited many Americans.”
“It’ll be very similar to all other conventions, and it’ll be fun,” Willette said. “It’ll be a good kickoff to November.”