Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump slams door on Cruz
Texas senator drops out of GOP contest after drubbing in Indiana
INDIANAPOLIS — D Donald Trump stormed to victory in the Indiana primary Tuesday, chasing Ted Cruz from the race and virtually locking down the Republican presidential nomination despite the strong misgivings of many in the party who fear a November rout.
“It’s over,” Republican strategist Curt Anderson said even before Cruz formally ended his campaign. “Done. Finished.”
Cruz acknowledged as much less than two hours after Indiana polls closed, as Trump seized a big lead he never relinquished.
Joined onstage by his family at a vintage railway station in downtown Indianapolis, with many of top campaign aides in the crowd, a downcast Cruz announced he would not fight the inevitable.
“We left it all on the field in Indiana, we gave it everything we got — but the voters chose another path,” Cruz said. “With a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.”
He made no mention of supporting Trump, reflecting a deep schism among Republicans that shows no signs of healing anytime soon.
The party chairman, Reince Priebus, declared Trump the presumptive nominee, even though Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains in the race and vowed Tuesday night to fight on.
Trump “will be presumptive nominee,” Priebus said on Twitter, “we all need to unite and focus on defeating” Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.
“No, that won’t be happening,” shot back Tony Fratto, a GOP consultant and former deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush. “But we’ll try to save the Senate.”
Critics of Trump insisted they were not yet giving up attempts to thwart his nomination.
“We’ll assess what a twoman race looks like and we’ll see what Trump does the next couple weeks,” said Rob Stutzman, a Sacramento-based strategist helping lead an anti-Trump political action committee focused on California’s June 7 primary.
For his part, Trump was gracious and uncharacteristically subdued as he assumed the mantle of presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Surrounded by family members in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, he praised Cruz — whom he derided throughout the campaign as “Lyin’ Ted” — as “a tough, smart guy” and “one hell of a competitor.”
Looking ahead to November election, Trump told supporters: “We’re going after Hillary Clinton.”
“She will not be a great president,” he said. “She will not be a good president. She will be a poor president. She doesn’t understand trade.”
For the third week in a row — following a string of landslide primary wins across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states — the outcome Tuesday was never in doubt.
But Trump’s powerful showing in Indiana was the most significant of all; the Midwest was a region where the Manhattan real estate magnate had struggled and the state was viewed by many as the last best chance for Trump’s opponents to slow his steamrolling campaign.
Still, the outcome seems nothing short of preordained, with Kasich a vast distance behind Trump in both the popular vote and delegate count after winning nowhere but his home of Ohio.
“This cake is baked,” said Charlie Cook, an independent campaign analyst and publisher of the non-partisan Cook Political Report. “California and the other eight remaining states will just be the icing on the cake for Donald Trump.”
His victory Tuesday was no surprise, though the margin was bigger than expected in a state once perceived as toss-up. With nearly mearly 90% of the voted counted, Trump was leading Cruz 53% to 37%, putting him on a path to win most, if not all, of the state’s 57 delegates under its winner-takes-most system.
Entering the day, the Republican front-runner had 996 delegates of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination. Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich trailed far behind, with 565 and 153 delegates, respectively.
Over the last two weeks Cruz made a series of moves that signaled his increasing desperation and the dwindling odds of his overtaking the Republican front-runner.
He formed a shaky noncompete alliance with Kasich, who stood aside in Tuesday’s contest to boost Cruz’s chances. He named his prospective vice presidential running mate, former business executive Carly Fiorina, forging ahead on an announcement usually left until the primary fight is over.
On Tuesday morning, as Hoosiers went to the polls, the Texas senator leveled one of his most scathing attacks on Trump, calling the Republican front-runner a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” “a serial philanderer” and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.”
Moderately conservative with a stolid Midwest sensibility, Indiana was seen as the last true tossup left on the GOP calendar and, for the anti-Trump movement, a crucial chance to stop his gathering momentum after a half-dozen big wins along the East Coast.
Cruz also enjoyed advantages he lacked in others states, including the endorsement — albeit lukewarm — of its governor, Mike Pence, and millions of dollars in advertising from independent groups working against Trump.
Cruz, along with Kasich, has been mathematically eliminated from winning the GOP nomination outright. Their hopes rest on denying Trump the delegates he needs to clinch ahead of the convention, then wresting the nomination away during a floor fight in Cleveland.