Donald Trump isn’t taking his front-runner status for granted, preparing for a potential convention dogfight by dispatching a senior representative to the US Virgin Islands last week to nail down delegates.
Alan Cobb met with a group of Republicans at a cafe on St. Thomas, springing for coconut shrimp, fajitas and booze. He joined the reps of five other GOP campaigns making the trip.
“They spent anywhere from $500 to $1,000” on a few dozen supporters, US Virgin Islands Republican Party chair John Canegata told The Post. “It was a great investment.”
Canegata, who works at the Cruzan rum distillery on St. Croix, provided a personal tour for Cobb, as he has to representatives of other campaigns. The emissary promised on Trump’s behalf to address a Commerce Department tax-import issue that increases the cost of local goods.
“He said those are simple fixes that someone like Donald Trump can fix,” Canegata told The Post.
Residents of US territories can’t vote in presidential elections, but they can vote in party primaries — and their combined delegates surpass what Tennessee gets.
Trump isn’t the only one thinking tropical — as other Republican presidential candidates are dispatching top aides and family members to line up support in US territories such as the Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
So far, five campaigns have each already sent in $3,500 checks to the Virgin Islands GOP to get on the ballot — funds the party will use to help fly its delegates to the Republican convention in Cleveland in July.
In the 2012 presidential primary, Mitt Romney won seven USVI delegates by getting 104 votes out of just 290 cast. This year’s Republican contenders have figured out they could score their own stash of delegates by turning out just a few dozen supporters.
“You have to do that in order to play,” said former Michigan state GOP chair Saul Anuzis, who backs Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. “There’s at least a small chance that we’re going to have a contested convention.”
Cruz went after island support by sending his dad to visit the Virgin Islands this summer.
Cuban-born Rafael Cruz stressed his island heritage and met with local pastors.
Back in September, Sen. Cruz phoned a 2012 Ron Paul delegate to head his support on the island.
“After I picked up my jaw off the floor, we talked for about 20 minutes,” said Cruz Virgin Islands chair Max Schanfarber.
Ben Carson hired Jason Osborne, an expert with ties in the Northern Mariana Islands who helped craft island-centric policy positions on issues from immigration to tuna tariffs.
To an organized campaign in need of a win, scoring delegates from far-away territories might seem like low-hanging fruit. Just 70 people participated in the 2012 caucus in American Samoa, where Romney scored another nine delegates.