How a Colorado history teacher and 400 of her fellow delegates are planning to block Trump in Cleveland

Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh; the 2012 Republican National Convention. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images; Adrees Latif/Reuters)

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One week ago, the Washington Post reported that dozens of Republican convention delegates had hatched “a new plan” to block a stumbling Donald Trump in Cleveland by adding a “conscience clause” to the convention's rules.

As regular Unconventional readers know, there is a convincing case to be made — and in his new e-book Unbound , Rules Committee member Curly Haugland of North Dakota makes it — that Republican convention delegates are already technically free to nominate whomever they want in Cleveland, despite the impression that they are bound by the results of the primary votes in each state.

A conscience clause would make this freedom explicit by saying that every delegate is allowed to vote his or her conscience on the first ballot — even if state laws or party rules say otherwise.

At first, this new “Dump Trump” faction was fairly small. Roughly 30 delegates from 15 states participated in a conference call last Thursday night. Since then, however, the unlikely campaign appears to have picked up steam. A second conference call on Sunday night attracted a claimed 1,000 participants, and this week, both the RNC and Trump have begun to fight back with delegate strategies of their own .

The group that started all this commotion calls itself Free the Delegates. Its founder — and self-proclaimed “loudmouth” in chief — is Kendal Unruh. She is a history teacher, a born-again Christian, a Rules Committee member, and a former Ted Cruz supporter from Colorado. On Thursday, she hopped on the phone with Unconventional to discuss how Free the Delegates came together, why she is “anybody but Trump” — and what exactly she's planning to do in Cleveland.

(Hint: If Unruh's conscience clause dies, she has a Plan B. And a Plan C.)

Unconventional: How did Free the Delegates begin?

Kendal Unruh: It began with me and the other Colorado Rules Committee member, Guy Short, grousing about how we didn't even want to go to the convention anymore after Cruz dropped out. But once we went through the grief process, we started talking about our options. We discussed various types of rules we could pass. Eventually, we settled on the idea of a conscience clause.

By that time, I had heard Curly on YouTube. I'd heard him on CNN. I read his book as soon as it came out, and I was like, “Eureka!” [Laughs] This is my eighth convention. We have been deceived. I've always had the power to unbind myself — I just never knew it. I had the kryptonite, but I'd been told it was glass.

Mitt Romney wasn't your first choice, but you accepted him. Same with many other Republican nominees before him. Why do you suddenly want to unbind yourself? What's different this time?

I'm a grassroots activist. I've been a grassroots activist for 30 years. I've always been against the establishment. And, honestly, that's why I was initially amused with Donald Trump — because he was breaking down the walls of the establishment. I was thrilled. But then the bloom wore off the rose.

Why?
I'll tell you when he slapped my blinders off: when he mocked the reporter with disabilities. That was a game changer for me. I am the mom of a son who died of his disabilities. I believe every single life is sacred. Having worked with families that have disabilities, having been in those circles, there is no variation with me. You do not mock people with handicaps.

May I ask what your son's disability was?
Sure. He had dilated cardiomyopathy, which is a heart condition. He also had a form of autism. Back then — this was 15 years ago — we didn't have nearly as much information as we have now. He died at 6. He was three weeks shy of his 7th birthday. That's why Trump's actions triggered a mother lion instinct in me. And then came all his subsequent acts of extreme prejudice and racism.

There were 30 people on your first conference call last Thursday. A few days later, you had another call with — you claim — 1,000 participants. Where did that surge of interest come from?

We started driving the media. And we started organizing. We got a key group of people in place. We are activists. We are not just laypeople who have never done this before. Our people have organized and run campaigns; they are elected officials. We're active in the party. This is not our first rodeo.

For instance, we were the ones who won all of the Colorado delegates for Cruz. We worked extraordinarily hard with our own time and treasure. We reached out to thousands of voters to get them to support us as delegates. And it wasn't one election and one group of voters. It was five, from the local level up to the state convention. So, it wasn't an easy process. We can do this.

Can you quantify how much support you currently have among the delegates?

In one week, we've gotten commitments from 400 delegates and alternates. In fact, we have more than 400 — the others just aren't ready to go public yet. We have two different spreadsheets: people who will go public and people who will not. But we have their votes.

We have a massive undercurrent of people who do not want this nominee. People who want to be the firewall — the last line of defense against the destruction of the United States as we know it. And their ranks are only growing.

What do you mean by you “have” them?
I mean they are Never Trump. They are a coalition of Cruz, [John] Kasich, [Marco] Rubio and [Scott] Walker supporters who have put their names in our database and pledged that they will not be casting their vote for Donald Trump on the first ballot — no matter what.

Do you need your conscience clause to pass in order for them to do that? Or are they willing to vote against Trump regardless?

They will vote against Trump even if the rule doesn't pass.

So, why are you proposing a conscience clause?
We believe the delegates are already unbound. But there is a group of delegates out there that I'm going after, and I know them well because I've been active for 30 years. They are the grandmas. The rule followers. They've been working for the party. They've been walking precincts and licking stamps. But they aren't outliers, like me. They don't like to rabble-rouse. The idea of unbinding makes them uncomfortable. The Republican Party tends to have a lot of these people.

When pressure is being put on them by the delegation chair, or the state chair, or their congressman, or their RNC committee member — fill in the blank — the conscience clause will give them something tangible to point to. “Here is an RNC convention rule that says I can do this.” It's their permission slip. People need that.

But you don't?
No. No matter how much pressure is applied, I'm going to be philosophically motivated to do what I'm doing. Actually, the more you apply pressure, the more I'm going to do the opposite. That's what's reflected in the 400 delegates we have so far. Now we need the grandmas to join us.

What progress have you made since that big conference call on Sunday?

We've set up a PAC. People wanted to donate money. We've also set up a legal defense fund. We had a lot of lawyers contact us and say, “We will defend any of these delegates.” We are networking all of those lawyers together. We have some of the smartest minds in the country working with us. I'm just blown away. They understand we're losing our party. And they understand that if nothing changes, we're going to lose this election.

RNC spokesman Sean Spicer has said Free the Delegates is “nothing more than a media creation and a series of tweets.”

Right. Why did they have a conference call about it then? Why did they pay to have the delegates polled to see if they support us or not? One of my fellow Rules Committee members got a phone call from a pollster asking where he stood on this. Don't tell me they're not worried.

The Trump campaign certainly seems to be concerned. News just broke that they've started to organize against you.

Their whip organization is going to have to fight our whip organization. This is what politics is. We know we're up against a machine. I know this is David and Goliath. We realize that. But I'm a mountaineer. I take it one step at a time.

What are your next steps?
We have our structure in place. We have our whips in place. And the more pressure that is applied, the more we have to flush our people out. There is strength in numbers.

So, you're reaching out to grandmas and banking as many names as you can. What else?

Guy Short and I are both reaching out to the Rules Committee members. I know I have to close my votes. We need 57 votes on the Rules Committee to pass the conscience clause.

Do you have a sense of how many votes you have right now?

Yes, I do. I've got 12 solids, four soft, then, of course, Guy and I. That's 18.

There aren't many anti-Trump rebels on the Rules Committee roster, which was released Thursday . What happens if you don't get to 57?

This isn't over if the rule dies. We have a Plan B and a Plan C. Establishment people are putting incredible pressure on the Rules Committee members. I'm hearing it on my calls, OK? They're being told that this is going to destroy the party.

I'm getting death threats on Facebook. It's just the most vicious thing you've ever seen. They've even gone after my 17-year-old daughter on Twitter.

So, let's say the rule dies.
Plan B is to file a minority report. I will do that. I only need 28 votes on the Rules Committee to get there. I'm extremely confident that I will get to 28. At that point, we'd need two-thirds of the convention delegates to vote with us. That's a steep climb. So, let's say our minority report doesn't pass either. We'll have to move on to Plan C.

Which is?
Activating our activists on the convention floor. We still have the right as delegates to make sure our ballots are not cast for Trump. And that's when things get … chaotic.

How so?
When they say the roll call for each state, our [anti-Trump] delegate — and we have them in each delegation — would grab the microphone and challenge, on international TV, the tally of the delegation and the submission of the votes. Then the chair is required to poll the delegation to make sure the vote count is accurate.

Now, they can play a game like they did in 2012, when they turned off the microphone to prevent Ron Paul's delegates from speaking . We're ready for that. We're going to make sure we're standing real close to that microphone.

California delegate Joan Clendenin tries to block Jeremy Blosser, who was shouting, “Out of order, out of order” in an attempt to disrupt roll call, during the 2012 Republican National Convention. (Photo: Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post via Getty Images)This is supposed to be a jubilant moment: “Colorado is known for 300 days of sunshine a year and great skiing, and we'd love to have your tourism dollars, and yay! We're casting 37 ballots for whomever!” Our rabble-rousers would spoil that moment.

I don't want it to come to this. I would love to have a smooth process, a fair process. As long as the process is fair, we'll be able to walk away without any problems. If the delegates choose Donald Trump in free conscience as their nominee, that's that: The Republican Party will own him. But we need to have that opportunity.

OK. Say this works. Who's your candidate? Would you be happy if Cruz mounted a comeback at the convention?

I don't care. I know reporters are going, “Come on. What's your real motivation?” This isn't a Cruz thing for me. All of us are in agreement. We will support anybody but Trump.

This is a historical first. There has never been a time when the delegates were running a campaign against the presumptive nominee without a replacement candidate. Our buttons should have question marks on them. Or a picture of a ghost. We don't know. We don't care.

Isn't freeing the delegates pointless without an alternative to Trump?

Nature abhors a vacuum. When there's a vacuum, someone will step in to fill it.

Critics are saying Free the Delegates will fizzle out by the time the convention comes around. I imagine that you disagree.

Here's what I bank on. I know that when the delegates are faced with the sanctity of their ballot — all the pressure and tactics and fireworks aside — they will take it very, very seriously. They will say, “Can I actually vote for this man?” And if they're honest with themselves, they will know that they can't. You cannot tell me that a majority of delegates on that floor want, in good conscience, to cast a ballot for Trump. The only thing that is keeping them from voting against him is the fear of retaliation.

And that's why we're here. To tell them they don't have to be afraid.