Trump jabbed at Romney late on Friday at Salt Lake City’s Infinity Event Center, less than two miles from the world headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the city’s Temple Square.
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The Texas senator got a big boost from anti-Trump forces Friday when 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney announced on Facebook that he would vote for Cruz in Utah, which has caucuses Tuesday.
“I have many friends that live in Salt Lake, I have a lot of friends”, Trump told the audience.
“You don’t see me at Bernie’s disrupting their crowd”, he said, referring to Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who was campaigning on the Arizona-Mexico border on Saturday.
Haley Barbour, the former MS governor and Republican National Committee chairman, said any rush to get behind Cruz – or any single candidate for that matter – would short-change the process.
Trump’s main rivals, Texas Sen.
Romney has campaigned with Ohio Gov. John Kasich in other states but stopped short of endorsing him.
Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican Presidential nominee, said he will vote for Ted Cruz on Tuesday in Utah’s caucuses. Trump added: “Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Are we sure?” the real estate mogul asked the crowd.
And the criticism is particularly harsh for Romney, who has been reluctant to share his Mormon faith in public life.
However, the governor of OH said that this election of voting for one to keep another out of office was a parlour game and the election was not about that.
For almost all of the 2016 Republican presidential campaign, you would have been hard-pressed to hear Ted Cruz mention fellow competitor John Kasich. In addition to his position as a prominent member of Utah’s dominant faith, Romney is also revered in the state for leading a turnaround of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
It is unsure how much the endorsement of Cruz might sway voters in the GOP in the caucuses on Tuesday. On Friday, Romney said he would vote for Sen.
“I’d like to see him be a little more gentle and I think he will”, said Okerlund, from central Utah.
The Vermont senator lamented corrupt campaign finance laws, a rigged economy and broken criminal justice system.
The clash between Cruz and Kasich over each candidate’s viability has already put them in conflict more so than at any previous point in the race.
In particular, she doesn’t expect Clinton to protect religious liberties as well as a mainstream Republican would, but she just can’t fathom Trump negotiating with foreign leaders or picking a Supreme Court justice. Trump has won 678 delegates in contests held thus far, according to a count by The Associated Press.
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Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, said by email, “If Cruz and his allies can prevent Trump from winning 1,237 delegates between now and June 7, Cruz still has a realistic chance of winning the Republican nomination on a second or third ballot in Cleveland”.
