During his speech in Rome Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took aim at the GOP and the way some of its state organizations award their delegates.
He lost some recent fights with rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in states where delegates are not chosen by voters, like Colorado. Those setbacks have some Trump's supporter calling for him to run as a third party candidate if he loses the nomination.
Christine Falinski said she is devoted to Trump's campaign regardless if he is on the Republican ticket or if he runs as an Independent.
"Donald Trump, being the business person that he really is, I think he can get everything back on track," Falinski said. "America needs him right now."
Trump, who has flirted with a third-party run before, seemed irate Tuesday as he vented to the crowd about his frustration with the Republican Party's many rules that Cruz is using to bleed delegates from Trump. He called it a rigged system.
"That system is set up so the crooked politicians can make sure they get somebody in who's not party of," Trump said. "You know what we're doing. This is a movement, folks."
Former gubernatorial candidate and longtime Trump advocate Carl Paladino said he and other New York GOP leaders will advise voters to stay home in November if trump does not receive the party's nomination at the national convention.
"If they try to steal this election and give it to one of their cronies, alright, the people will be very, very upset," Paladino said. "They are not going to show up at election time, that's for sure. Or they may -- if Trump does a third party which we all would want him to do -- they're going to vote for Donald Trump."
New York voters will decide how many delegates each candidate receives in the primary next week, but local Republican officials will get to choose who those delegates are.
