The effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination may not be dead and buried, but it is certainly stiff and ready to be pumped full of embalming fluid. “Tonight, I’m sorry to say that it appears that path has been foreclosed”, Cruz said at a rally in Indianapolis. “I said I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory”. “And so with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign”. “Ted Cruz, I don’t know if he likes me or doesn’t like me, but he is one hell of a competitor”. As Trump has picked up the vast majority of delegates in the last two weeks, the likelihood of Cruz forcing Trump into a contested convention in July dwindled.
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Trump still must win about 200 more delegates to clinch the nomination.
Last Thursday, Cruz made the unprecedented step of announcing his vice presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina, despite not having won the party’s nomination. Trump’s immediate challenge is to unite deep fissures within the Republican Party, easing tensions with party loyalists who are appalled at his bullying style, his treatment of women and his signature proposals to build a wall on the border with Mexico and deport 11 million illegal immigrants.
Speaking to his supporters at Trump Tower in New York, Trump said: “I have to tell you I have competed all my life”.
Then Cruz lost IN badly on Tuesday and dropped out of the race. Lindsey Graham of SC – tweeted that “if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed… and we will deserve it”.
At least one other political observer agreed Kasich could be waiting for Trump to crash.
Cruz’s exit comes after the primary battle took a nasty turn Tuesday when Trump cited a tabloid report linking Cruz’s father Rafael to John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
“We’re going after Hillary Clinton”, he said.
Trump responded by calling Ted Cruz is a “desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign”.
Recognizing the shift in gear that faces the Trump campaign, he put a marker in the sand. The upset in the Hoosier State was a much needed win for Sanders who’s trailing the former Secretary of State by a significant amount of delegates. A total of 1,237 delegates are required to win the GOP nomination. However, Trump, Cruz, Kasich and other the names of other GOP candidates who have since dropped out will remain on the New Mexico ballot on June 7.
As Donald Trump captures the mantle of presumptive Republican nominee, a new poll finds he begins his general election campaign well behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken to Twitter to attack what she calls presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “toxic stew of hatred & insecurity”.
