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KNKX, along with NPR, will bring you all the information you will need as we close in on Election Day 2016. Stay up to date with local and national issues along with stories about how this election cycle will affect you and your family here in Washington and around the world.Also be sure to check out our series on Sound Transit's Proposition 1, also known as Sound Transit 3. You can read more about ST3 and this series here. Be sure to stay up-to-date with our national coverage too by clicking here.

Delegate Bell Disappointed In Cruz Speech At RNC; Says 'He Went Against His Word'

Matt Rourke
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AP Photo
People react to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., as Cruz addresses the delegate during the third day session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was one of many speakers Wednesday at the party’s national convention. And he was likely the most controversial one after refusing to endorse GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. The delegates from Washington state were firmly behind Cruz when they initially arrived in Cleveland, Ohio at the start of this week.

But many, like Jack Bell, are now backing Trump in the interest of party unity. Bell says he was discouraged by the fact that Cruz even went on stage in the first place.

"As a Cruz supporter I would have wanted him to just [have] not gone on," he said. "I was really disappointed. He was my guy coming in ... and he signed a pledge and said he was going to support the nominee, and he went against his word. It doesn't look good on him in the future."

Credit Nicholas Geranios / AP Photo
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AP Photo
Volunteers at the Washington State Republican Convention hand out ballots to select delegates for the Republican National Convention, Friday, May 20, 2016; in Pasco, Wash. The elected delegates overwhelmingly supported former candidate Ted Cruz.

Cruz left the stage Wednesday night as the crowed booed. The line that caused the most trouble for him was, "If you love our country and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience."

Bell says Cruz's comments were "detrimental" to the efforts of bringing all the states together to back candidate Donald Trump. He says now all eyes will be on the GOP candidate to fix the damage caused by Cruz.

"I think it's really going to lie on Trump's shoulders in his speech. People are looking for him to say he's doing to support the platform, and to say that he's doing to listen to his advisers, and to say that he's going to be a voice of the people," Bell said.

Bell says, personally, he wants to hear more of an issues- and policy-driven speech from Trump.

"A lot of people just don't know how he stands on certain issues. He tends to waffle back and forth. He needs to solidify what his platform is and promise to stick to it," Bell said.

This is part of KPLU's ongoing election series "From the Floor," focused on the Washington delegation at each of the party's national conventions.

Ed Ronco is a former KNKX producer and reporter and hosted All Things Considered for seven years.
Ariel first entered a public radio newsroom in 2004 while in school at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. It was love at first sight. After graduating from Bradley, she went on to earn a Master's degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield. Ariel has lived in Indiana, Ohio and Alaska reporting on everything from salmon spawning to policy issues concerning education. She's been a host, a manager and now rides shotgun with Kirsten Kendrick as the Morning Edition producer at KNKX.