By the time Ted Cruz climbed the stage at the World Arena in Colorado Springs on Saturday, the fight for Colorado Republican Party convention delegates was effectively over. The day before, his state team mopped up 21 of the 37 delegates the state will send to the national convention while frontrunner Donald Trump had secured none.

So Cruz, casual and confident and practiced from months on the hastings, stepped out before the more than 6,000 assembly attendees and delivered a knock-em-dead victory speech that brought him a full sweep of the 13 remaining state delegates he could win — the last three being two unpledged national party delegates and state Party Chairman Steve House.

“God bless the great state of Colorado. What a blessing to be with so many incredible lovers of liberty, so many freedom fighters,” Cruz said, walking around the stage.

“We’re here today because our country is in crisis, because we’re bankrupting our kids and grandkids, because our constitutional rights are under assault, because America has receded from leadership in the world.

The speech was marked by trademark Cruz flourishes — stark phrases delivered in the cadence of an old-school preacher and vows to shutter government agencies and undo the work of President Obama.

“It’s easy to say you’ll make America great again… but the real question is, do you understand the principles and values that made America great in the first place,” he said. “The heart of our economy isn’t Washington DC. The heart of our economy is small businesses all across the United States of America. And if you want to see the economy take off, you lift the boot of the federal government off the back of the neck of small businesses.”

“If I’m elected president, we will repeal every word of Obamacare.”

“We will abolish the IRS.”

“We will rein in the EPA and the federal regulators who have been descending like locusts on small businesses, killing jobs all across the United States.”

The Cruz delegate sweep in Colorado marked a triumph of strategy and organization for the campaign and underlined the challenge for Trump and his supporters presented by the arcane Republican primary system. Trump never visited Colorado this week, concentrating his efforts on larger contests, and his absence at the assembly seemed especially glaring as Cruz left the stage to roaring applause.

Trump supporter Tom Grassia played down the landslide assembly support for Cruz, saying the party activists and officials, legislators and congressmen gathered in the hall were exactly the kinds of people Cruz has been courting — insiders. Trump appeals to outsiders, he said — independent- and first-time voters, the kind of voters you need to win a general election.

“This year, too, the process was so complicated,” Grassia said. He mentioned rule changes around presidential primary voting that baffled many participants and observers. He said that kind of complexity turned off Trump voters.

“(The party) took away the presidential straw poll this year. It’s like, ‘What’s going on?’ People don’t understand it. The party could do a much better job of educating voters. I had to drive two hours down from Thornton to show up, you know? Not everyone can do that.”

Some Trump supporters have felt for weeks that state leaders had it in for their candidate and so adopted a grimly mocking view of the proceedings at the assembly.

“They’re having their fun here. Good for them. Wait until Republicans vote in New York. Wait till Pennsylvania,” said Grassia.

That view gained credence just after news broke that Cruz had swept the state delegates and the Colorado Republican Party sent out a grave-dancing tweet. “We did it. #NeverTrump,” it read. The tweet was soon deleted but political observers screen-grabbed it and it rocketed around political media circles.

“The last tweet was the result of unauthorized access to our account and in no way represents the opinion of the party,” came the next tweet from the party Twitter account. “We are investigating.”

The World Arena halls and eating tables were strewn with expensive official-looking “Convention and Assembly Guides” that were put out by the anti-Trump super PAC Our Principles.

“Donald Trump is a lot of things… A consistent conservative is not one of them,” read one of the tag lines.

Cruz was the clear choice among the “consistent conservative” crowd at the assembly. His speech hit all the right notes.

It was also the kind of performance that will fail to quell concerns among national party leaders about how Cruz would preform in a general election.

President Reagan, who Cruz name-checks constantly, could deliver lines about the boot of government and regulators descending like locusts and somehow come off as kindly and sensible. It was a natural talent honed over decades. But that approach to public communication seems foreign to Cruz, whose gift is for fire and brimstone.

Yet now Cruz also seems to be working into his repertoire more material on the plight of working-class Americans, including a direct sympathetic reference to “union workers” as a group.

“I want to talk to all the single moms here, who are working two and three part-time job,” he said. “I want to talk to all the truck drivers, all the plumbers and electricians, all the machinists and steelworkers and union members — all the people with callouses on their hands, who see wages stagnate year after year. Cost of living keeps going up but somehow your paycheck doesn’t seem to keep pace.

“I want to talk to all the young people, coming out of school. You got student loans up to your eyeballs, and you’re scared that you won’t get a job and what does the future hold. And the media tries to tell us ‘This is the new normal; This is as good as it gets.’ Well, let me tell you, that is an utter lie.”

Cruz said he would address working-class ills by slashing regulations, streamlining government and getting tough on immigration.

“Let me tell you what’s going to happen when we do all that,” he said. “We’re going to see millions and millions of new high-paying jobs. We’re going to see jobs coming back to America, coming back from Mexico, coming back from China. We’re going to see wages rising again all across America. We’re going to see young people coming out of school filled with hope, filled with dreams with two, three, four, five job offers,” he said, his voice rising.

Applause filled the hall.

— john@coloradostatesman.com