“Donald Trump is unwilling to stand on stage and debate because he can not defend his positions or his policies”, Cruz charged at a Wednesday afternoon news conference here.
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Cruz appeared to be bracing for another tough round of primaries next week, when five states in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic will vote.
And his speech sounded more presidential than any other he has given on an election night – a focused, tightened message about trade and the economy as he prepares to campaign in states hit hard by manufacturing industry losses.
Supporters jeered when he mentioned his NY primary defeat to Hillary Clinton this week, but Sanders – who barely mentioned his opponent today – assured his base that he’s determined to stay in the race. The state wasn’t going to be especially friendly territory for Cruz to begin with, given its demographic makeup, and he undoubtedly made things worse for himself by attacking Trump’s “New York values”. She could lose them all and still win the nomination – if she does well enough to win some delegates.
Mrs Clinton’s decisive victory ended a string of wins by Mr Sanders and gave her more delegates than her advisers expected. Had Manafort told him that the Trump campaign was still considering protesting Colorado’s results, “the whole tenor of his talk would have been contradicted”, Short said.
Cruz, 45, and Kasich, 63, are trying to prevent Trump from winning the nomination outright so they can force a contested convention. If Trump does not reach the 1,237 threshold, he fears Republican grandees will conspire to deny him the nomination in Cleveland, even if he is well ahead in delegates. A new Monmouth University poll shows her with a 13-point lead in the state.
REUTERS/Eduardo MunozDonald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, on April 17.
She said that Sanders was never in the race to win.
In recent weeks, Trump has begun currying favour with the Republican Party leaders whose support he may need to secure the nomination.
Despite getting shut out of the delegate race in New York, Cruz is aggressively courting delegates across the nation who could hold great sway at the convention.
Polling figures generated Thursday by RealClearPolitics suggest Trump’s chances of beating Clinton in the general election aren’t as good as his rivals’.
Right now Clinton has 1,930 delegates, compared to Sanders’ 1,189.
Trump’s campaign has struggled to keep up with Cruz in working the delegate system, deepening the urgency around his team’s efforts to clinch the nomination before the July convention. Sanders is winning with white men.
Hillary Clinton is calling for unity.
He also expressed concern about the closed primary system in NY and said he hoped it would change in the future. After stomping through the NY primary, taking down 60 percent of the vote and almost every one of the state’s 95 delegates, his campaign strategically leaked an “internal memo” to the Washington Post projecting a tidy conclusion to the Republican nominating process.
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Clinton will spend the day campaigning in Pennsylvania.
