Previous Story
Local GOP set to endorse Presidential candidate on March 15
The local Republican Party will vote for its presidential candidate this March 15 and also vote for its locally elected delegates on the same day, local GOP spokesperson Ivan Blanco told Saipan Tribune yesterday.
The endorsement of a presidential candidate will come via the votes of these locally elected delegates.
The CNMI has nine delegates who will be representing the party at the Republican National Convention, scheduled for Cleveland, Ohio in July.
So far, GOP candidate representatives for Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and Dr. Ben Carson have visited the CNMI ahead of the local caucus to gain support.
While the Trump and Bush advisor’s largely expressed a desire to learn the issues in the CNMI, Carson, for his part, has detailed an outline of initiatives to appoint a Territory and Commonwealth Advisory Committee (TCAC) consisting of representatives from American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico if elected president.
“The TCAC will be integrated into my Presidential Transition Team, and be tasked with performing a holistic review of all federal regulations affecting the Territories and Commonwealth,” Carson said in a recent column.
Last January, Guam’s Republican Party officially endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Typically, the three Pacific territories—Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands—and Hawaii back the same candidate for the GOP nomination, according to Cruz strategic consultant Dennis Lennox in an earlier email.
