Judging by the way Brooklyn Republicans were chosen as delegates to the GOP convention this summer in Cleveland, the Party’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump may not be such a lock on the nomination, according to a knowledgable Brooklyn Republican source.
Among those who was left off the list of being either a delegate or alternate delegate was 44th Assembly District Republican Leader Glenn P. Nocera, a longtime Party loyalist known for doing a lot of the crucial background political work as well as being Chair of the Brooklyn Young Republican and President of the Brooklyn Tea Party.
“I’m very infuriated the way this went down. We could have had three true Trump supporters and instead we got a mixed bag,” said Nocera, who lives in the 10th Congressional District, which is about 60 percent in Manhattan and 40 percent in Brooklyn.
In the presidential primary, John Kasich carried Manhattan in the 10th CD while Trump carried Brooklyn. However, Trump’s 60-plus percent win in Kings County enabled him to win the district as more people turned out and it was much closer in Manhattan.
According to Party rules, Trump would get two delegates from the district while Kasich would get one. However, Manhattan Republican Party Chair Adele Malpass, a Kasich supporter, said that traditionally the majority county gets to pick the delegates that go to the Republican National Convention and that’s Manhattan.
This led to a KCP-reported dispute between Brooklyn Republican Male District leader Carl (Nachman) Caller and Malpass.
Caller successfully leveraged the 900 signatures he collected to get GOP Congressional hopeful Phil Rosenthal on the ballot against Democratic incumbent Jerry Nadler, to get selected as an alternate delegate – the only Brooklynite selected from the 10th Congressional District and a strong Trump supporter.
Malpass also made sure she was selected as a delegate, and her husband, David Malpass was picked as an alternate. The couple are both listed as Trump delegates, according to the New York State Delegate List as linked below.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/sites/default/files/160517_RNC_Delegates_Alternates.pdf
Nocera, who is loyal to the Sen. Marty Golden and attorney Ted Ghorra faction in the current Brooklyn GOP court dispute with Lucretia Regina-Potter and Arnaldo Ferraro over control of the borough’s Republican Party, did not get much lobbying support from Ghorra, according to sources, despite letting everybody know his strong interest in becoming a delegate.
Ghorra responded he did what he could and met with everybody, but there was a lot of people that wanted to be delegates.
Nocera did make a point of giving, “A big thank you to Lucretia Regina-Potter and Arnaldo Ferraro for going Upstate to Albany at the Republican at-large delegate convention and trying to fight to get me on as a delegate or as an alternate delegate in the 10th Congressional district,” on a Facebook post.
“This proves that despite me being on the opposite side of support in this particular Republican chairman race that will be decided in the courts soon enough that there is hope that Brooklyn will be unified as one entity for the betterment of this party,” said Nocera.
But according to the knowledgable Republican Brooklyn source, Trump’s team itself bears some responsibility for not doing more grassroots outreach to their supporters to become delegates.
“The Trump people knows how to work the media, but they don’t know the meat and potatoes of grassroots, which is cultivating loyal delegates. Several Trumps supporters including myself have tried to get a hold of the Trump campaign and they never responded back,” said the source adding this could cost Trump the nomination.
The source explained that if Trump gets to the convention with only about 10 delegates over the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination he may be in trouble. The declared Trump delegates are only pledged for the for the first round of voting and they can abstain from voting.
“It’s also very simple for 30 or 40 delegates to disappear in the first round of voting. They can be at the bar or running late from lunch or visiting the lavatory,” said the source.
The source said Trump’s team should have had at least one representative when the state convention was held a few weeks ago and last Friday when City Republicans got together in Queens to decide delegates.
“It’s bread and bitter politics 101. You have to rally the troops, and when it comes down to brass tactics, Trump’s team didn’t do much in the boroughs to shore up that support. Now if he loses the nomination by 10 or 20 delegates he’ll only have himself to blame,” said the source.
