Claims the GOP nominating system is “all rigged” at Delaware rally

At an April 22, 2016 rally in Harrington, Delaware, Trump told supporters that the Republican nominating process was “all rigged” and insisted they had to “win big” to overcome what he called “delegate nonsense.” Speaking after weeks of railing against party rules in Colorado and threatening a “rough July” at the convention, he painted ordinary delegate procedures as corrupt and suggested that insiders could steal the nomination from him regardless of votes. By framing the rules themselves as illegitimate and casting himself as the victim of a stacked contest, he deepened a pre-2016 general-election pattern of priming his base to see any setback as proof that the system is crooked rather than a normal result of competition (see 2016-02-01_to_2016-02-07, 2016-03-14_to_2016-03-20, 2016-04-04_to_2016-04-10, and 2016-04-11_to_2016-04-17).

"The system is all rigged. That’s why we have to win big." — Harrington, Delaware campaign rally on April 22, 2016, where he told supporters the Republican nominating rules were “all rigged” and urged them to “win big” to overcome “delegate nonsense”