Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's delegate team sought to portray strength and legitimacy following state party conventions in North Dakota and Tennessee this weekend. But so did Trump's rivals.

Party officials in both states held contests to elect delegates whose votes have become all important heading into July's Republican National Committee's convention in Cleveland. Trump is poised to enter the convention as the front-runner, leading in both votes cast and in pledged delegates, but coming just short of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

On Sunday, Trump senior adviser Barry Bennett declared victory after officials in North Dakota elected the state's delegates. "It's the first time that our ground delegate operation went head to head with Senator Ted Cruz and we won," Bennett said.

Yet, the Cruz campaign also declared victory Sunday. "I'm thrilled," Cruz said in a campaign statement about the results, dubbing it a "resounding victory." "Whether we defeat Donald Trump before the convention or at it, I'm energized to have the support of the vast majority of North Dakota delegates," said Cruz, who spoke at the state's convention on Saturday.

Republicans in North Dakota elected 25 delegates at their state convention on Sunday. And the final 25 delegates did not have to specify whom they would vote for at the RNC convention should it become a contested process. On Saturday, Republicans in Tennessee elected 14 at-large delegates, who are not required to vote for Trump, despite the fact that he won the state's primary.

For the next several months, state party officials will begin holding their own conventions to elect delegates to send to the convention. Each state has differing rules, with some delegates not being bound to vote for the candidate who won the state's primary at the RNC convention in Cleveland.

The complexity of the delegate process comes at a time when Trump is facing questions about the competence of his political team. Trump dubbed the entire delegate process a "crooked system" while campaigning in Eau Claire on Saturday night. "You've got all of these people against me, that's why it's important that I win. I don't want to go in there looking at the second ballot because probably with the way the thing is, it's crooked as hell," Trump said.

"It's not fair folks. It's not fair because I'm the outsider and what they do is they want to knock out the outsider is they want to keep their little party going."

Trump raised similar concerns about its complexity in a meeting last week with Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus in Washington. In a separate meeting that same day, Trump also met privately with Ed Brookover, the Republican strategist who formally advised Ben Carson's presidential campaign, as well as his political team.

Inside of the Old Post Office Building in Washington, D.C., which Trump is converting into a luxury hotel, the Republican front-runner and his political team plotted their strategy for the upcoming state conventions where the delegates will be selected. "We've got to be able to fight five or six battles at exactly the same time," Bennett said.

The strategy that has emerged for Trump involves utilizing his massive social media presence to pressure state party officials from tilting the favor toward any one candidate while sending top surrogates like Carson to speak on his behalf at state conventions. Meanwhile, Trump has hired veteran political strategy Paul Manafort to helm his convention strategy, Bennett said. 

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