Subject: RE: Washington Examiner: Cruz campaign warns of Trump disaster for GOP
From: "Bennett, Eric" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:37:04 -0700

Politico write up. Flagging new COH number:

Roe also told reporters that Cruz ended March with "nearly $9 million" cash on hand - roughly $1 million more than he had at the beginning of the month. Cruz's campaign had previously announced it had raised $12.5 million in March.

Cruz's campaign manager: Trump nomination could require GOP to 'rename our party'<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trump-nomination-gop-jeff-roe-222215>

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trump-nomination-gop-jeff-roe-222215

The senator's team told RNC leaders Wednesday that Trump would be a down-ballot disaster.

By SHANE GOLDMACHER

Jeff Roe, Ted Cruz's campaign manager, says he told Republican Party leaders Wednesday that Donald Trump's nomination would be a down-ballot disaster so bad that "it could be a situation where we'd have to rename our party."

"It will be a whitewash," Roe told reporters after his briefing at the spring meeting of the Republican National Committee.

Cruz's top brass - Roe, chief strategist Jason Johnson, delegate wrangler Saul Anuzis and former Virginia Atty. Gen. Ken Cuccinelli, among them - came to the RNC's spring meeting here to press the case for Cruz's path the presidency to top party activists.

Roe predicted it is "highly likely" that the GOP contest will go to a contested convention, and that his team was using the meeting of the GOP's leadership to argue that Cruz would be far better for the party than Trump. The members of the RNC could prove key as almost all 168 of them would be unbound free agents to support whomever they want after the first ballot of a contested convention.

Roe said there were two keys to the Cruz case. "One, we can win, he can't,' Roe said. And second, that Cruz would support local elected officials across the country.

"One of the critical components, if you're an RNC member that has worked their life to get Republicans elected in your state, is how do you get them reelected with a Republican nominee. What is the nominee of your party gonna do for you as a state party?" Roe said. "And that's where we all came from to a person on our team, we came from the grassroots running campaigns."

"We believe this is national campaign that Republicans can compete and should compete in places where they haven't competed before," Roe added.

Roe also told reporters that Cruz ended March with "nearly $9 million" cash on hand - roughly $1 million more than he had at the beginning of the month. Cruz's campaign had previously announced it had raised $12.5 million in March.

On Tuesday, Cruz himself gave a speech with new themes and an eye toward a possible general election in Philadelphia, in which he rolled out a new slogan - "yes we will" - a surprising play on President Obama's signature 2008 phrase "yes we can."

Roe made the case Wednesday that Cruz, unlike Trump, can appeal to crucial traditional Democratic constituencies needed to win in November. "We have a life story that's compelling to women, that's compelling to minorities, and is compelling to younger voters," he said. "Our opponent in our primary doesn't have that."

The Cruz briefing was open for interested RNC officials, and Roe said he was pleased with attendance. "It is a very good Q&A," he said.

Trump's team is expected to hold its own briefing later in the week.

From: Bennett, Eric
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 2:28 PM
To: Comm_D
Subject: Washington Examiner: Cruz campaign warns of Trump disaster for GOP

Cruz campaign warns of Trump disaster for GOP<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2589060/>

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2589060/

By DAVID M. DRUCKER

Ted Cruz's top campaign advisers warned a gathering of Republican insiders Wednesday that the party faces a "whitewash" up and down the ticket with Donald Trump as the presidential nominee.

In a private briefing at a seaside resort where the Republican National Committee was gathered for one of its annual quarterly meetings, Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe laid out Cruz's fall plan to win the nomination, and said Cruz's plan would help carry down-ballot Republican candidates to victory. But he also warned that these victories would slip away with Trump at the top.

"It would be a whitewash," Roe said when asked by reporters how the GOP would fare with Trump as the nominee. "It could be a situation where we would have to rename our party afterwards."

Roe's hour-long presentation was a clear appeal to solidify support for the senator with RNC members, who will also serve as delegates to the national convention in Cleveland. Following Trump's big victory Tuesday in his home state of New York, Cruz's only path to the nomination is through a contested convention.

Roe dismissed Trump's victory as irrelevant, and said Republicans need to think about how to hold onto seats currently held by the GOP.

"One of the critical components, if you're an RNC member that has worked your life to get Republicans elected in your state, is how do you get them re-elected, with a Republican nominee? What is the nominee of your party going to do for you as a state party?" Roe said. "We can win; he can't. Two, we will build an infrastructure that supports the local elected officials running for re-election."

With his 845 delegates, Trump is the only candidate who can mathematically attain a 1,237 delegate majority and clinch the nomination in the remaining primary contests.

But Cruz has outflanked the front-runner in delegate elections across the country, by installing loyalists on delegations that are prepared to flip to him in a multi-ballot floor fight once they are not longer bound to the candidate that won their state's primary or caucus. Trump's grassroots organization is weak, and that's what Roe tried to impress upon RNC members.

The Trump campaign was scheduled to brief RNC members on its strategy on Thursday afternoon. Gov. John Kasich Ohio, who won a few delegates Tuesday in New York but is still running a distant third in the hunt for delegates, was set to pitch RNC members in person during an evening reception at the upscale Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, Fla., just south of Ft. Lauderdale.

Trump blew away his competition in New York, winning most of the 95 available delegates and padding his lead. Cruz finished third behind Kasich. Roe said the results were expected and don't alter the contours of the primary campaign going forward. Trump is not more inevitable today than he was before New York, Roe said.

"We've been here before. We were here the week before Iowa, we were supposed to lose - we were counted out after South Carolina, counted out after Nevada. Then, we were the nominee and we were measuring the drapes after Wisconsin," Roe said. "There are going to be ebbs and flows in this campaign, we've been there before. This campaign is going through June 7 and likely to a convention."