"Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pulled out a strategic victory at Saturday's Arizona Republican Party convention, nailing down a large majority of delegates to the national convention amid cheating accusations from backers of businessman Donald Trump.
The Cruz slate won virtually all of the 28 at-large national delegates and roughly split the 27 delegates selected by congressional district.
Former Gov. Jan Brewer, losing her first election in 35 years, angrily yelled "I got cheated — I got cheated," as the results became known.
But Cruz's Arizona campaign organizer says simple math led to the at-large victory. Cruz offered a nearly identical slate of candidates as John Kasich backers, and the combined votes led to a win.
The victory was mainly strategic for Cruz since all 58 Arizona delegates are required to vote for Trump on the first national ballot because he won the state's primary. There are three automatic delegates, including state party Chairman Robert Graham.
With Trump at nearly 1,000 national delegates out of 1,237 he needs to win the presidential nomination outright after recent sweeps of five eastern states, even Cruz's Arizona backers believe Saturday's effort is likely to be for naught." yahoo