{"id":24291,"date":"2016-07-19T19:23:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T02:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/dissent-among-alaska-delegates-as-trump-wins-gop-nomination\/"},"modified":"2016-07-19T19:23:17","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T02:23:17","slug":"dissent-among-alaska-delegates-as-trump-wins-gop-nomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/dissent-among-alaska-delegates-as-trump-wins-gop-nomination\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissent among Alaska delegates as Trump wins GOP nomination"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU<\/strong> \u2014 A dispute over the allocation of Alaska\u2019s delegates at the Republican national convention sparked dissent Tuesday, the day Donald Trump secured his party\u2019s nomination for president.<\/p>\n

State party chairman Tuckerman Babcock had expected the delegates to be divvied up according to the results of the Alaska GOP\u2019s presidential preference poll in March, barring any letters from Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio releasing their delegates.<\/p>\n

Cruz, in winning the poll, picked up 12 Alaska delegates. Second-place finisher Trump got 11 delegates and Rubio got five. Cruz and Rubio later suspended their campaigns.<\/p>\n

But the convention\u2019s presiding officer awarded all 28 of Alaska\u2019s delegates to Trump, drawing a protest from Alaska\u2019s delegation. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, said that allocation was in accordance with state party rules and it was upheld.<\/p>\n

Alaska party rules state that if a candidate drops out after the state convention but before the national convention, the allocation of delegates will be recalculated. Alaska delegates for all three candidates are attending this week\u2019s national convention in Ohio.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Babcock said the Republican National Committee misinterpreted state party rules. But he also said: \u201cWe are all united\u201d behind Trump and Trump\u2019s running mate, Mike Pence.<\/p>\n

Babcock said earlier Tuesday that Alaska delegates had come around to accepting that Trump would be the party\u2019s nominee, though he said a couple might still be struggling with supporting Trump.<\/p>\n

Babcock said the alternative to Trump is presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and predicted a Clinton presidency would spell \u201cdoom and gloom\u201d for Alaska.<\/p>\n

Former state Rep. Peggy Wilson, a Trump delegate from Wrangell, said Trump isn\u2019t trying to become president for fame or glory because he\u2019s already rich and famous.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s here because he really cares about America, and that is so awesome,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wilson said Ben Carson was her first choice as the GOP nominee but said she\u2019s excited to see Republicans start to pull together for Trump.<\/p>\n

Babcock said Trump is a different kind of candidate, and he doesn\u2019t know what to expect when Trump addresses the convention this week.<\/p>\n

National committeeman and Trump delegate Peter Goldberg said he thinks Trump might address the economy, trade, the military and immigration \u2014 possibly clearing up his positions on immigration.<\/p>\n

Trump \u201cmarried an immigrant, he\u2019s not anti-immigrant,\u201d Goldberg said, adding that Trump insists \u201che just doesn\u2019t want to let anybody in if we don\u2019t really know who they are and why they\u2019re coming,\u201d Goldberg said.<\/p>\n

Also Tuesday, Wilson and Babcock defended Trump\u2019s wife, Melania Trump, amid criticism that two passages from her convention speech were strikingly similar to a 2008 speech from Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n

Wilson said Trump opponents are desperate to find something negative about Melania Trump. Wilson called her classy and intelligent and said she spoke from her heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought that she is such a sweetie,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIn my opinion, we\u2019ve had first ladies that stood out and that America truly kind of loved. Nancy Reagan, of course, was one. I think Laura Bush was one. I think Jackie Kennedy a lot of people really liked. And I think that this lady is going to be someone that a lot of people can really identify with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Babcock said he was struck by Melania Trump\u2019s description of her parents, her upbringing and becoming an American citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you could ever compare her speech to Michelle Obama\u2019s because Melania Trump focused a lot on hard work and working for your opportunities, whereas the Obamas focus on handouts and relying on government for your opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Babcock suggested that if a speechwriter knew about the similarities that person should accept responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 A dispute over the allocation of Alaska\u2019s delegates at the Republican national convention sparked dissent Tuesday, the day Donald Trump secured his party\u2019s nomination for president. State party chairman Tuckerman Babcock had expected the delegates to be divvied up according to the results of the Alaska GOP\u2019s presidential preference poll in March, barring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":24292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24291"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}