BISMARCK - The fuss raised by former North Dakota GOP chairman Gary Emineth on Monday at the Republican National Convention wasn't about unbinding delegates or stopping Donald Trump from becoming the party's presidential nominee, he said - he simply wanted a roll-call vote on the convention rules.
But Emineth and other petitioners didn't get it, and while he was still stewing about it Tuesday in Cleveland, he said it was time for delegates to move on and unite behind Trump.
"I think a lot of people are saying, 'Let's learn how to live to fight another day,' " he said.
Despite Monday's rocky start, the mood had turned positive by nighttime after speeches from Trump's wife and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, among others, North Dakota GOP chairman Kelly Armstrong said.
"Convention fights are what they are. You have your convention fight and then you move on to the next business," he said.
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Monday's conflict arose from delegates concerned that party leaders were pushing through RNC rules that consolidated too much power at the top, Emineth said.
In the mix were the "never-Trump" delegates - who planned to make a final stand Tuesday before Trump gets officially nominated, Politico reported - and delegates who believe they should be able to vote their conscience instead of being bound by their state's caucus or primary results.
Those trying to force a state-by-state roll-call vote submitted petitions with a majority of delegates from nine states as required, but three of those states were later disqualified after delegates withdrew their signatures, various media outlets reported. Emineth accused party leaders of working behind the scenes to quash the effort, and he called for the resignation of RNC chairman Reince Priebus, with whom he'd been exchanging text messages.
"He was saying, 'You didn't get the signatures,' and I was like, 'It's because you were strong-arming people,' " Emineth said.
In protest, Emineth resigned his position as North Dakota co-chair of the joint Trump-RNC fundraising committee. He said those asking for the roll-call vote likely would have lost anyway but wanted the opportunity.
"We thought we'd send a strong message," he said. "They create a problem for themselves by not allowing people to let some steam off."
Armstrong, a state senator from Dickinson, said that while it could have been handled better, he agreed with the outcome because the rules were followed and he was glad it was explained to delegates after the voice vote adopting the rules.
"As somebody who has run a convention, I think they were running into danger without coming back out," he said.
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Rep. Ben Koppelman of West Fargo, who supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for president until he dropped out of the race, said that while he wished more thought had gone into handling the issue, "I believe the convention is very unified around Donald Trump."
Meanwhile, political website The Hill pushed an opinion piece Monday by Republican state Rep. Kathy Hawken of Fargo and Democratic state Sen. Dwight Bullard of Florida on why they won't vote for Trump. The lawmakers characterized the New York businessman as a threat to abortion rights and someone who "thrives on bigotry, misogyny, discrimination, and hate."
"We cannot have a president who espouses a worldview in which women are unequal to men. This means making sure Donald Trump - a vulgar bully who no one can be proud of - gets nowhere near the Oval Office," they wrote.
North Dakota's 28 national delegates are unbound because the state GOP didn't have a presidential preference caucus or primary, though Armstrong has said party leaders will consider changing that.
