I am getting it, you are not. The party made it intentionally complicated and difficult for normal people to vote because they did not want regular voters to choose. They even cancelled the customary straw poll because they knew Trump would probably win it. That is why only 60K out of 1+ million Colorado republicans actually voted. The Colorado GOP tweeted “We Did It! #NeverTrump” after the convention. They claimed the account was hacked, it turned out that was a lie. The fix was in and it was rigged against Trump, on purpose, by the GOPe hacks for Jeb! originally but they decided to give it to Ted Bush after Jeb! dropped out. There was nothing fair about it but that won’t stop Calgary Ted from bragging about winning rigged contests like that. The fact still remains that out of 26 contests decided by voters so far Cruz has won only 4. He does well in conventional and caucuses where it is easier for his GOPe buddies to rig it for him but Cruz has repeatedly demonstrated he does very poorly in voter decided elections. That is simply a fact.
What you are not getting is that we republicans in Colorado THREW OUT our previous primary system for two major reasons. The first being the national GOP party bosses were using that system to reduce or eliminate LOCAL control of the party. The second and in my opinion the lesser of the two was for costs.
No the CO party did not cancel the NON-BINDING customary straw poll because of who they thought might win. They canceled it because the NATIONAL party said that any such poll had to be binding on the delegates. That is what the party used to institute control over the local party back in 1988 when Colorado switched from the caucus system that had been in place since 1912. So no, we are not going back to national control over our local party.
What you dont understand is the intensity of the dislike for Trump. Out here in the west we see him as a fast talking used car sales man who will say anything to get elected. He has a history of hiring illegals, supporting Clinton, bad mouthing the Reagan tax cuts, supporting the assault weapons band and not fighting for the pro life cause. To many of us, that makes Trump not much better than Hillary and certainly not a conservative. Where Trump tends to do well is in states that are not conservative and/or allow democrats to cross over and vote for him.