Until 8 p.m. includes Twin Cities area

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Minnesota Republicans are gathering in Duluth Friday and Saturday for their state convention.

With no statewide races on the ballot in 2016, the main order of business is to round out their slate of delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.

When Minnesota held precinct caucuses in March, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was the top choice of state Republicans. But he dropped his campaign a few weeks later, and since then Donald Trump has cleared a path to claim the GOP nomination on the first ballot.

Trump's campaign has a presence in Duluth this weekend.

At a hospitality room at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center,  Trump supporter Scott Gregory, who lives in the Twin Cities, was handing out Trump campaign materials from New York along with an assortment of his own stuff, including lip balm, candy bars and potato chips.

"I've got a lot of goodies here, handing out, because people like free stuff," he said.

Gregory said he hoped his efforts would help build party unity behind Trump.

Former Republican Party of Minnesota Chair Ron Carey was wearing a "Defeat Hillary, vote Trump" sticker in the interest of unity.

"The voters have spoken around the country and now it's time to unite because if we don't we are going to have President Hillary Clinton, and that is something that I hope all Minnesota Republicans can agree upon would be a very disastrous course for this country," Carey said.

At a meeting of the party’s Central Committee Friday afternoon officials rolled out new voting technology that Chair Keith Downey said could save a lot of convention time.  Committee members used hand-held, wireless voting devices to vote for national committeeman and committeewoman positions.  The devices record and instantly tally votes.

Downey called the test-run a “working experiment that could bear fruit for the party.”

The technology could replace traditional paper ballots which take a long time to count and can draw out multi-ballot battles for hours, Downey said.  He put the cost of the Central Committee test at about $1,000.

When Downey said the new technology might replace paper ballots, some Central Committee members booed.

Committee member Ryan Lorsung of Coon Rapids was not among them.  He said he likes the new way to vote and the devices.

“They’re nice," he said. They’re very efficient.”

Politics and Government News

Capitol View®

Mark Zdechlik

Author

State Republicans gather in Duluth Friday and Saturday to round out their slate of delegates to the party's national convention and take care of other business.

Republicans kick off convention in Duluth

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox