Hillary Clinton, the almost unstoppable Democrat, and Republican front-runner Donald Trump accelerated Wednesday toward Northeast primaries on an increasingly direct path to presidential nominations after trouncing party challengers in NY.
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The ultra-conservative hopeful has been trailing Donald Trump in the Republican race for some time, amassing just 559 delegates to Mr Trump’s 845.
However, if Mr Trump failed to win the necessary number of delegates he faced the prospect of a so-called “contested primary” which allows delegates to switch their vote, potentially handing Mr.Cruz the final victory.
John Kasich met with Republican party insiders on Wednesday as he seeks to pitch himself directly to the delegates and tries to convince them that going with his competitors means Republicans will “get creamed” in the general election.
CRUZ: Upon winning his home state, Donald, with a characteristic display of humility, declared this race is over.
He and his newly recast team also are pledging to do more outreach to Washington Republican leaders, who have often been hostile and the target of Trump attacks, and to spend significant amounts of money to run a more conventional campaign. Supporters in Hershey said they’re looking forward to seeing how he might fare on a second or third ballot among convention delegates.
Trump’s political strength, though he boasts of drawing new members to the party, has left some Republicans concerned that his nomination could splinter the Republican Party. “Nobody is able to reach 1,237”.
Cruz ended up easily defeating Trump in Wisconsin, something that anti-Trump forces hoped would slow the GOP front-runner, at the very least. “They can take the delegates, they can put “em in airplanes and fly “em to resorts, they can have dinners with them, they can put them in hotels”. Cruz conceded to reporters there that Trump was likely to have a good week next Tuesday in a quintet of states that neighbor NY, but indicated his eyes were fixed on states further down the line, such as California, which he deemed “the big enchilada”.
Ben Carson, who endorsed Trump after he exited the presidential race in early March, will also be in the room to help make the case for Trump, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by Bloomberg Politics.
“What is clear today is that we are headed to a contested convention”, Cruz said.
“We don’t have much of a race anymore”, Trump boomed.
These long standing ties were on display Tuesday night during Clinton’s victory rally in Manhattan. He said it was extremely unlikely that either candidate would have the delegates needed to win the nomination outright.
In Suffolk, Clinton beat Sanders by a 55-to-45 margin. In an open convention, delegates can vote for any candidate.
Hillary Clinton won big.
Even as Trump is ramping up his delegate operation, he has repeatedly called the nomination process “rigged”, claiming that the party should pick the person who receives the most votes in the primaries.
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A source familiar with the situation said Wiley and other Trump representatives were meeting with Republican officials from the five Northeastern states that will hold primary elections next Tuesday: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. The Cruz campaign, meanwhile, has prided itself on a grassroots campaign with a meticulous attention to data and detail when it comes to picking up delegates.
