Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a South Carolina Republican primary night event in Spartanburg, S.C., Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016. Trump claimed a big victory in South Carolina’s Republican primary Saturday, deepening his hold on the party’s presidential field as the contest moved into the South.NASHVILLE – While Republican Gov. Bill Haslam still won’t reveal whether he will vote for GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump should Trump become the Republican nominee this fall, he is saying something the billionaire businessman may like.
If Trump is just short of the magic number needed to grab the nomination on a first ballot, Tennessee’s governor says anti-Trump forces shouldn’t try to snatch it from the former reality TV star.
“We have 15 states down, we have 35 to go,” Haslam, who backed Republican Marco Rubio in Tennessee’s March 1 primary, told reporters Tuesday.
Haslam said if Trump is close to the required 1,237 delegates when he walks into the GOP convention but leaves without the nomination, his supporters will be irate.
“If they’re at 48 percent and the floor vote goes away from them, that’s a pretty tough pill for his followers to swallow,” Haslam said. “If he’s at 35 percent, that’s a whole different case.”
The governor added, “people always think there’s some group of party elders at the top saying we knight you and we don’t knight you. But that’s not how it works.
“The party is whatever the people vote to do,” Haslam added. “I’ve expressed concerns about some of the positions Mr. Trump has taken that I think need to be clarified or corrected from what he said in the past. But ultimately voters in primaries are going to decide what we do.”
Haslam’s comments are the first he’s made to state Capitol reporters in days.
The governor attended last weekend’s Republican Governors Association in Park City where, the Washington Post reported, many of the governors were wringing their hands over Trump.
Haslam told the Post that Trump needed to be slowed down before he racked up too many delegates. If not, party elites risk the appearance of trying to steal the nomination from him at the convention.
“That is probably the most dangerous situation for the Republican Party,” Haslam told the Post. “If he gets there with not a majority but close to a majority of the [delegates] and doesn’t get the nomination, that’ll be very difficult. He could say, ‘I’m going to ask all of my folks to sit this one out to show them how big we are.’ Who knows?”
The governor told Tennessee reporters that he’s not actively involved in the GOP establishment’s “Stop Trump” movement. State Capitol reporters asked Haslam, a billionaire, if he had contributed any money to the super PACs now feeding voters in other states a relentless anti-Trump message.
He said he has not.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via twitter at AndySher1.