Cruz spent Monday traveling across the Hoosier State after he and Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) announced a coordinated plan to prevent Trump from getting the GOP nomination.
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But the former secretary of state is poised to extend her delegate lead Tuesday, when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries.
But he is not there yet. Cruz and Kasich agreed that Kasich would not compete there and cede the state to Cruz.
Trump faces a tough path to earn the 1,237 delegates needed to lock up the nomination before the convention. “Kasich is asking his supporters in IN to vote for Cruz so Trump does not win in…” Trump is poised to perform well in those states but Cruz and Kasich are focused on later contests.
Some influential party figures such as 2012 nominee Mitt Romney have aligned with a Stop Trump movement, which may or may not be benefiting Trump’s chief rival Cruz, an arch-conservative USA senator from Texas.
When the 2012 Republican nominee lambasted front-runner Donald Trump in March, he called for a strategic effort to stop the NY businessman. “They should vote for me”.
Kasich said at a Philadelphia diner on Monday as reporters peppered him questions about his decision to skip campaigning in IN, ceding the territory to Cruz.
“This feels like a desperate move to keep the Cruz and Kasich campaigns alive with the hopes that either one of them might prevail in a contested convention”, Bonjean told FoxNews.com. It’s a modest edge – Cruz won about 1.1 percent more votes in Wisconsin than Trump did in NY – but an edge nonetheless.
The two Republican presidential candidates are hoping to stop front-runner Donald Trump from winning delegates in upcoming primaries by dividing time and resources between their respective campaigns.
The governor himself brushed off the interest in the two campaigns’ sudden decision to map out a mutually beneficial course – and criticism that it was an inappropriate alliance. Marco Rubio, as an example, has more delegates than Kasich and yet suspended his campaign one month ago. And the agreement applies only to Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico ” three of the 15 states remaining on the Republican primary calendar. Hillary Clinton is subtly gearing up for Donald Trump. But I’m not over there campaigning and spending resources.
Cruz on Monday said Trump’s outrage shows the billionaire does not like his odds in battlegrounds like Indiana.
Just as notably, they are also asking voters in the GOP primary to cast their votes strategically.
Speaking to supporters in Rhode Island, Trump says, “It shows such total weakness and its pathetic”.
IN is not strictly a winner-take-all state.
Trump picked up on that Monday, mocking Cruz as a whiny baby and making fun of the way Kasich eats.
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The rhetoric picked up during a stretch where Cruz outmaneuvered Trump in statewide delegate conventions in Colorado and other states. His campaign has already said Kasich has the support of a majority of Indiana’s delegates to the national convention if the nomination goes to a second ballot.
