Marco Rubio, bowing out of the race after Trump trounced him in his home state and Kasich “getting ready to rent a covered wagon” and head west “to California”, despite needing a mathematically impossible 112 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination on a first ballot at the Republican convention. And if GOP leaders try to deny him the nomination at a contested convention when he is leading the delegate count, Trump warned, “You’d have riots”.
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Clinton has cemented her lead over rival Bernie Sanders.
Trump might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland to formally pick its candidate. It would be a vote that could see Trump lose the nomination even if he went into the convention with a strong lead.
The Republican front-runner also said he’d skip a debate scheduled for Monday, saying, “I think we’ve had enough debates”.
On Tuesday, Trump won Illinois, North Carolina and, most crucially, Florida, dealing a fatal blow to Sen.
Trump and Cruz are in a dead heat in Missouri, which was still too close to call on the morning after the Republican primary.
“If John Kasich stays in the race, he may as well contribute all the money he spends in-kind to Donald Trump, because he will make it so that Cruz can not compete with him in the winner-take-all states”, ex-Cruz campaign aide Rick Tyler told MSNBC.
Kasich on Wednesday told NBC that neither Trump nor Texas Sen. The attack on Clinton indicates voters will see more of this classless behavior all the way to the November general election.
His win in OH will deny any candidate from reaching that key majority of delegates, his campaign said on Tuesday night; as such, chief strategist John Weaver said Tuesday, his win is “resetting the race”. But Mr Ryan yesterday ruled this out. Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer said that RNC is preparing “for all contingencies including an open convention” but noted that the party will “let the process work itself out”, according to CNN.
“People say, ‘What about the contested convention?'” Ryan said in an interview with CNBC. “Although we’re waiting for final results in IL and Missouri, we know we will add to our delegate lead to roughly 300 with over two million more votes nationwide”, she said.
Trump’s Florida victory brought his delegate total to 621. He is followed by Cruz (396), Rubio (168) and Kasich (138). Rubio left the race with 169. Ted Cruz by fewer than 2,000 votes out of about 925,000 counted in the Republican primary.
While Florida, with its closed primary and older voters, and North Carolina with its high percentage of African American voters, were expected wins for Clinton, she also performed well among non-white voters in Ohio.
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Kasich, who secured his first victory after more than 20 states have voted, vowed to continue campaigning until the party’s convention and beyond. Sanders has at least 800. After that, anyone – even someone who hasn’t been running – can win the party’s nomination.
