Cruz continued: “At the outset of this campaign, I committed to support the Republican nominee, and I honor my word”.
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Florida is especially crucial for the GOP field of candidates, which now consists of Texas Sen.
Exit poll data shows Trump tends to do worse with voters who wait to pick their candidate until the final days of campaigning in their states. Marco Rubio 46 percent to 22 percent. Both Florida, home to Rubio, and OH, home to Kasich, hold winner-take-all primaries Tuesday.
Cruz repeated the appeal at a press conference in Illinois Monday, according to a CNN report, but threw in an added incentive for his struggling rivals.
Trump now has 460 delegates compared to 370 for Ted Cruz; 163 for Marco Rubio; and 63 for Kasich.
A win in both, on the other hand, would significantly increase his already-wide lead in the delegate count. He would cross an important threshold by collecting more than 50 per cent of the delegates awarded so far. “I plan to be there Wednesday morning and we plan to win tomorrow”, he told reporters after a brief retail stop at a restaurant in Melbourne, Fla.
Rubio suggested he’s considering backing off his pledge to support the Republican nominee if Trump wins the nomination. “We elect Hillary Clinton and we destroy the country if Trump is the nominee”, he said at an IL event.
“In any campaign, the responsibility starts at the top”, he said on ABC’s This Week. While Romney has not endorsed Kasich, he’s said he’ll do whatever is needed to help all of Trump’s rivals. On Sunday, Trump told supporters if he wins OH “we’re going to run the table” .
“Trump and Sanders would be worst for stock market”, said another respondent.
The convention offered a rare opportunity for Republicans in the overwhelmingly Democratic nation’s capital to cast a meaningful vote, with 19 delegates to the national convention at stake. During a rally in Hickory, North Carolina, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Trump downplayed the protests and blamed them on Democratic president candidate Bernie Sanders.
In January, Trump said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters”, as he turned his fingers into the shape of a gun.
Sanders’ stunning upset last week in MI, where polls indicated he trailed by double-digit margins, showed his ability to pull off a surprise. In the week leading up to the primary, Trump trashed Kasich for supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement while serving in Congress in the 1990s, questioned his strength as a leader, and called him an “absentee governor”. In a crowded field with more than 10 candidates, Trump had the support of about one-third of voters who made their minds’ early.
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“I do hold him responsible”, she said in an interview with MSNBC. If Clinton comes out of Tuesday’s contests with decisive wins in several states and further pads her delegate lead, it would be hard for Sanders to catch her because all the Democratic nominating contests allot delegates proportionally.
