If Sen. Marco Rubio had agreed to become Sen.
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Republican officials who oppose Donald Trump as their party nominee have spent the last few days – ever since the withdrawal from the race of Sen.
The week before Cruz lost the IN primary, and dropped out of the race, he and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had announced a pact to divide up the remaining primary states before California – a pact Kasich broke soon afterwards, stumping IN Indiana.
CNN’s Jack Tapper reports that top advisers to Ted Cruz are convinced Donald Trump could have been stopped if Rubio had agreed to be Cruz’s running mate, and blame Rubio for not jumping aboard.
Politico reported in March that Rubio rejected the idea of a “unity ticket”. And after teaming up with other GOP hopefuls to try and stop Trump’s march to the nomination, Rubio recently said – more or less – that he’d support Trump’s campaign against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In a Facebook message Monday, the Florida Senator said he would not seek and did not want to be considered for vice president.
Cruz eventually named former Hewlett-Packard CEO and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate – a move that generated headlines that partially blunted the effect of crushing losses in the northeast states, but did not reverse his overall decline.
For one, the source said, Rubio thought the notion of two senators from Washington, D.C., teaming up against Trump would fit all too easily into the Trump outsider narrative.
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A source close to Cruz said those polls indicated a “blowout” – 65 percent to 35 percent – with Trump losing in Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Arizona and Wisconsin.
