Republican presidential hopeful Sen.
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“I’ve never told them not to vote for me” in IN, he told reporters as he ate breakfast at a diner in Philadelphia.
While five states go to the polls on April 26 with some 172 Republican delegates at stake, both Cruz and Kasich’s campaigns view Indiana’s winner-take-all contest on May 3 as the critical turning point for thwarting Trump’s rise to the nomination.
Mr Trump said his rivals were “totally desperate” and “mathematically dead”.
Analysts believe Trump will be close to securing the 1,237 delegates needed to lock up the nomination before the GOP convention in Cleveland.
But if no candidate has a majority in the first round, there is automatically a second ballot.
They may have unwittingly given Trump important new ammunition against them – after all, he’s built his insurgent campaign on railing against the establishment.
“You know if you collude in business, or you collude in the stock market, they put you in jail”, Mr Trump boomed in Warwick, Rhode Island.
But Trump says he’s actually OK with the decision because it demonstrates his rivals’ weakness. “It shows how pathetic they are”, he said.
The deal perhaps says more about the importance of IN to efforts to stop Trump than it says anything about New Mexico or Oregon. “It’s going to be an open convention”, Kasich said. “That’s all.” He also noted his need to be frugal with campaign resources, saying he did not have “‘Daddy Warbucks’ behind me giving me all this money”.
In addition to all the outside money, Cruz operatives have been working in IN for weeks. But a Fox News poll found Trump’s lead over Cruz in IN would narrows if Kasich withdrew from the race.
That means Kasich won’t spend money in IN, according to a statement emailed late Sunday night, and has canceled plans to campaign there this week.
However, it might be hard to get Cruz supporters to vote for Kasich, and vice versa.
Kasich’s campaign also issued a similar statement. Kasich was last, a 4 percent, in what at the time was a six-person race. Cruz had 12 percent.
Trump’s message has resonated with his supporters.
The two Republican candidates have confirmed that they are being strategic about upcoming races and organizing their efforts to try to avoid competing against one another in certain states, focusing on putting their strongest foot forward against Donald Trump instead.
The processes for how each party selects delegates differs.
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones thinks it’s a winning strategy, especially for Cruz. At that point, hundreds of delegates that are now bound to Trump could get a shot to throw their support behind any of the candidates.
Kasich and Cruz had already retreated to IN, which holds its primary on May 3.
He called the alliance another example of “corruption” in politics.
New Mexico is part of the five-state final voting round on 7 June, when clearly California’s 172 delegates will be crucial.
Cruz took his daughters to an ice cream shop in downtown Columbus Monday, one of four in campaign stops. “They ought to vote for me. I don’t really see a lot changing”, he said.
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The New Mexico Democratic Party criticized the move. It’s a state that has elected Hispanic Republicans, including the current governor, Susana Martinez. The party could bring in candidates by way of more liberal rules, but the campaigns with the most delegates make those rules. “I don’t see it as an insider deal, I see it as a surprise but that’s not the same thing”.
