“We believe voters should have a chance to vote”, Mr. Weaver said, reacting to calls from some Clinton supporters for Mr. Sanders to drop out and allow her to prepare to face a Republican nominee like Donald Trump.
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Donald Trump has warned Republicans there will be riots if the party tries to block him becoming its presidential nomination.
Mainstream Republican Party figures have spoken out against Trump, after an outbreak of violent scuttles between his supporters and protestors that forced him to cancel a Chicago rally last week, and scattered protests at some of his campaign events this week. He suggested Kasich is well-positioned to amass delegates in the upcoming primary contests to help bolster his position in a contested convention.
With Marco Rubio dropping out of the Republican presidential race Tuesday, the Florida senator leaves a large cache of delegates behind.
Barbour said Trump “doesn’t deserve to be president”, but also said he could ultimately support the billionaire if he “can convince me that he’s presidential material”.
“His people think they can now change the narrative of the race, but they said the same thing after Kasich came in second in New Hampshire”, Mr. Fehrnstrom said.
That means he can go to Cleveland in July with his 169 delegates acquired so far and bargain at the convention if Trump is short of a majority by then or if Trump loses the first round of voting for the nomination at a contested convention.
In Florida, for instance all 99 delegates went to Trump as the victor of Tuesday’s primary, while in New Hampshire, delegates were awarded on a proportional basis. While no such candidate has been identified, the participants in Thursday’s meeting planned to discuss ballot access issues, including using an existing third party as a vehicle or securing signatures for an independent bid. And as his aides point out, the primary election calendar now moves away from the South, where Clinton has dominated with minorities, including African-Americans and Hispanics. That debate was to occur the night before contests in Utah and Arizona with 98 delegates at stake.
Already, former House Speaker John Boehner has endorsed current Speaker Paul Ryan, who is not running for president, to be the party’s nominee, saying “If we don’t have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I’m for none of the above…I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee”.
On the Democratic side, wins on Tuesday for former secretary of state Mrs Clinton, 68, gave her an nearly insurmountable edge over Senator Sanders, 74.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Mr Trump said the party could not deny him the nomination should he fail to win enough delegates.
The other major takeaway from Tuesday is that despite four out of five victories in the latest round of Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton remains vulnerable as her party’s presumptive candidate for November despite the political reality that her only rival, Bernie Sanders, can not aspire for the nomination any more.
MacManus also said moderate Republicans, especially “some of the Republican women that just can’t vote for Trump”, might cross over to vote for Clinton. He picked up an endorsement Wednesday from Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
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Mr. Kasich collected his first win of the primary season Tuesday, besting Donald Trump in Ohio. The ad focuses on Trump and not on Sanders, Clinton’s Democratic opponent. But to do so, Trump would need to win 54 percent of the remaining delegates – so far, he has won 47 percent. In Florida, Sanders received just 33 percent of the total vote, while Hillary brought in 64 percent. “I think with the new found money it’s really going to be a boost to his campaign”, he said. “You know why? Because nobody else is going to do this”, Kasich said, according to 6ABC.
