Donald Trump condemns Ted Cruz Colorado victory as 'crooked'

Cruz showed superior ground game to make clean sweep of delegates

Donald Trump on the campaign trail (AP)

Donald Trump. the Republican frontrunner, erupted today after it became clear that his rival for the party’s presidential nomination, Senator Ted Cruz, had achieved a clean sweep of all 34 delegates awarded by Colorado over the weekend while his campaign had earned none.

“It’s a crooked deal,” Mr Trump fulminated on Fox News, complaining not just about Mr Cruz but also about the unique set up in Colorado whereby delegates for the first time were chosen by party activists meeting in a series of conventions across the state, not by ordinary voters.

That there might have been something not quite democratic about this was seemingly underscored by a Tweet sent out by the Colorado Republican Party itself once it became clear that Mr Cruz had emerged from the process with all the available delegates. “We did it. #Never Trump,” the Twitter message said, the Denver Post reported. It was quickly erased.

After his big loss in Wisconsin last week, Mr Trump is now in trench warfare with Mr Cruz over delegates numbers. If he is to avoid a potentially chaotic floor fight at the Republican convention in Cleveland in July, Mr Trump must reach the magic number of 1,237 delegates before then. Every delegate seized by Mr Cruz makes that milestone harder to reach.

His Colorado supporters are now in revolt, Mr Trump said. “The people out there are going crazy, in the Denver area and Colorado itself,” he told Fox. “They're going absolutely crazy because they weren't given a vote. This was given by politicians - it's a crooked deal.”

The billionaire, who later on Monday was to hold another major rally in New York state, which holds its key primary on 19 March, also accused Mr Cruz of trying to steal delegates away from him in South Carolina, which he won in February and Mr Cruz came in third. Yet at the local party conventions this weekend Mr Cruz reportedly brought three delegates over to his side.

Mr Trump accused the Cruz campaign of trying to buy delegates with promises of rewards, but offered no substantiating details. “Now they're trying to pick off those delegates one by one,” he complained. “That's not the way democracy is supposed to work. They offer them trips, they offer them all sorts of things and you're allowed to do that. You can buy all these votes. ”What kind of a system is that? ... It's a rigged system.”

While questions will be raised about the decision of the Colorado Republicans to forego ordinary caucus or primary voting, it may also be the case that the Trump campaign simply failed to get its ground game together in the state to win support for its slate of delegate candidates at the various party conventions, whereas the Cruz campaign evidently did.

There was no officials response from Mr Cruz, but at the weekend an aide to the Texas Senator was dismissive of the Trump complaints. “More sour grapes from Trump who continues to lash out in tantrums every time he loses,” said Catherine Frazier, a Cruz spokeswoman. “We are winning because we've put in the hard work to build a superior organization.”