Ted Cruz is the top pick of Utahns in Tuesday’s GOP presidential preference caucus election and Vermont Sen.
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Cruz is likely to fare very well in Utah anyway, but take a wild guess how many Republican voters will be inspired by a message of grudging, fleeting tolerance.
There are two undeniable facts about the current state of the GOP: Donald Trump is nearly certainly going to be the presidential nominee, and there’s a large minority of the party who can’t deal with it.
Other Rubio surrogates are following suit, such as conservative Arizona congressman Matt Salmon, who on Sunday said he would choose Cruz. From Christie or Kasich to Huckabee or Cruz-hell, even Gilmore or Pataki-I was in full “Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play” mode. He has invested heavily in Utah in recent days, airing $215,000 in ads – the fifth highest amount he’s spent in any state so far.
Cruz far outpaced Kasich, while front-runner Donald Trump lent funds to his campaign.
Recognizing that Trump has seized a formidable advantage in the race, they say that an effort to block him would rely on an array of desperation measures, the political equivalent of guerrilla fighting. For Republicans, there are only three candidates left, one of whom party leaders consider wholly unacceptable.
A woman, who was not identified, asked Trump for a job and he brought her to the podium. Listen, nobody’s going to that convention with enough delegates.
Cruz is in second place with 423 delegates and Kasich is in third with 143.
So Kasich will need to lay out a clear strategy to voters and donors on national television to win states and demonstrate he’s not a spoiler.
Donald Trump may not win Utah’s caucuses Tuesday but a split in the votes could help him walk away with delegates. If Utah is willing to vote Democratic to stop Trump, the scope of the damage that Donald Trump will do to the Republican Party is unlimited. “At this point”, Romney said on the call, “a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump”. “By Kasich going to Utah, you’re making it harder for Ted to get 50 percent”. And the GOP picking Donald Trump is one of those choices, the effect of which will be 6 million lifelong GOP voters abandoning their party. Sixteen percent of those polled said that they would not vote if the matchup is Trump vs. Clinton. But with no single standard-bearer in the running, the billionaire real estate developer has managed to amass a majority of delegates. And at the end, do you know why I’ll get picked? He made the announcement on his official Facebook page as Kasich was speaking to about 600 people during a town hall at Utah Valley University.
Another former Utah governor, Mike Leavitt, is supporting Kasich. The Texas senator, an unapologetic conservative firebrand, often lashes out against Republican establishment figures, many of whom traditionally thrive in Utah. “There are reports that just this week, conservative GOP leaders met and they discussed two options”.
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Coburn said that Trump “needs to be stopped” and that he expected to back an independent candidate against him. If a candidate captures 50 percent support in the caucus, the candidate wins all 40 of the state’s delegates. “They will take a look at people’s experience and their electability”.
