While Cruz’s big win in Utah did not widen his limited path to clinch GOP nomination before the party’s convention, it made increasingly possible that he could stop Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates to win party nomination outright.
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Business mogul Trump got 47 percent of the vote in Arizona, followed by Cruz with 25 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 10 percent, according to The New York Times.
Even though Cruz and Trump were in agreement on terrorism “patrols”, their bitterness was on display Tuesday night over an ad that a SuperPAC ran attacking Trump’s wife Melania with an ad featuring her posing nude and the tagline, “Meet Melania Trump: Your Next First Lady”. But he said only Cruz can beat Trump at this point.
Trump, who targeted Bush early in the Republican campaign, responded to the endorsement via Twitter: “Low energy Jeb Bush just endorsed a man he truly hates, Lyin’ Ted Cruz”.
Bush’s endorsement of Texas senator Ted Cruz comes as the Republican establishment grapples with an unexpected rise in populist anger directed at Washington, the flames of which Trump has helped fan with his vitriolic rhetoric. While the match-up with Cruz is tighter, adding all of the undecideds to his total still results in a loss (though it would at least be within the poll’s margin of error). “My friend Governor Kasich can not”, Walker said in an interview with WTMJ-AM broadcast on Wednesday.
Cruz looked on track to win all of the 40 Republican delegates from Utah, although Trump won the 58 delegates up for grabs in Arizona, partly due to his tough message on illegal immigration. “Or You Could Support Ted Cruz on Tuesday”.
Bush, once seen as the likely nominee but whose candidacy never gained momentum, tweeted Wednesday that Cruz is a “consistent, principled conservative who has shown he can unite the party”.
Trump also called on America to back away from its leadership role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. Among those voters, Mr. Kasich got 17 percent and Mr. Trump got 14 percent.
Since Rubio bailed March 15, Cruz’s support has grown an average of 2.6 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics rolling average, from 26 to 28.6 percent. But some players in the GOP are hoping that brokered Convention could lead to another candidate.
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Clinton’s campaign will be in a stronger position to attack the eventual GOP nominee once the internal battle within the Democratic Party is over, and she gains the support of the folks now supporting Sanders.
