First off, thanks for the concise description of the process in your state. My question is are the delegates Rubio won in Minn. required to vote for him at the convention or are they being ‘told’ to vote for someone else?
If Rubio is on the ballot in Cleveland, those assigned to Rubio have to vote for him on the first ballot. After the first no one is obligated to vote for anyone in particular. If some weirdness happened and every Minnesota delegate to Cleveland had declared for Rubio, a portion of them would be told to vote for the others according to their portion of the caucus voters.
If Rubio isn't on the ballot, his "assigned" delegates will be "reassigned" proportionally to whoever in on the ballot according to how they fared in Minnesota.
They would have no complaints nor would any presidential candidate. It's the rule we all agreed to when we signed on. Rubio got the highest "delegate" count at 17. Cruz and Trump follow in that order. I think Rubio's 17 would be split with 10 for Cruz, 6 for Trump and 1 for Kasich...something like that.
This is the first year such assignments have followed in Minnesota. It's all still a little new to us...and a little confusing. No one is trying to steal anything. Quite the opposite. Party insiders don't really get to pick. They can try but have no real control over the real delegates.
I was surprised at our State Senate District (BPOU) convention. Cruz was not a close second on caucus night in Minnesota, even in our extremely local precincts. Rubio did extremely well...better in Minnesota than in Florida.
I thought being a Cruz guy would doom me as we climbed the ladder. I did say I would support the final GOP nominee...period. I have said it would be unfortunate if Kasich were to get the nod. I would even support him v. whichever loon survives the Democrat circus.
I didn't poll number one at my convention but was in the upper third of the 15 "Delegates" as opposed to "Alternates" we are sending to State. I still have no intention of running for the chance for Cleveland.
I wish our ultimate nominee was as loyal to his voters as they are to him. I like Cruz because he has, so far, done what he said he was going to do, even when the best inside the beltway advice was to the contrary.