Cruz had conceded the Northeast and taken his campaign to IN even before he and Kasich announced their pact.
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If Trump continues to pick delegates at this rate, the only way the Republican Party will be able to prevent the Donald from winning the nomination is if they cheat him of it. In fact, the very unfairness of the various plots to deny Trump the nomination might be exactly what is turning even more Republican voters towards the Donald.
Kasich may have agreed not to campaign in IN, but he made a decision to go ahead with a fundraiser there on Tuesday, for example.
“We are very comfortable with our delegate position in IN already, and given the current dynamics of the primary there, we will shift our campaign’s resources west and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in IN”, he said.
Trump can afford to lose OR and New Mexico, which award delegates proportionally.
In a moment of stunning coordination between competing campaigns, Texas Senator Cruz and Ohio Governor Kasich have teamed up in an attempt to stop Trump from clinching the needed 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination.
It’s a last-ditch effort, for sure. “Can the average Kasich supporter stomach voting for Cruz?”
“I call foul and BS”, he told CNN’s John Berman. “I’ve got good news for you tonight. I understand why they would say something like this, but I don’t think it will change anything”.
“I will beat Hillary Clinton”, Trump said.
“This is a week we’ll get a better look whether there’s a new Trump or old Trump or multiple Trumps….”
Trump has railed against his rivals’ coordination, panning it as a “faulty deal” and has also cast efforts to push the nomination fight to the convention as evidence of a rigged process that favors political insiders.
The state GOP convention begins with a bang Friday afternoon with an address by Republican presidential front-runner and political supernova Donald Trump. A Canadian Press analysis of the remaining states suggests that if Trump’s poll numbers hold up he could find himself along the edge of 1,237 delegates entering the Republican convention.
Cruz was peppered with questions by reporters about whether picking Fiorina simply amounted to an act of desperation, something Trump has claimed.
There is some high-level support for Kasich in the Pennsylvania GOP – including former Gov. Tom Ridge and national GOP committeeman Bob Asher – and that creates the potential that a bloc of delegate votes will favor Kasich.
Clinton said during her Tuesday night rally in Philadelphia that Trump had accused her of playing the “woman card”, telling supporters, “if fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card, ‘ then deal me in”. “Not only would Trump get blown out by (Hillary) Clinton or (Bernie) Sanders, but having him as our nominee would set the party back a generation”. Pennsylvania had 17 other delegates who will be bound to Trump, who won the popular vote there as part of his five-state sweep Tuesday.
The rules vary by state, and in Florida, for instance, delegates are only “released” on the fourth ballot. But California is a large and diverse state, with 53 congressional districts. “It’s a recognition by both campaigns that the goal is to win in November”.
On Monday, Cruz wasn’t exactly gracious toward Kasich or showed any sign of collaboration.
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Trump blasted the arrangement on Twitter Sunday night. “This disrupts the usual Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal paradigm, and I think we don’t know how this will all play out”.
