Former Massachusetts Gov. and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney says he thinks Republican front-runner Donald Trump is likely to win the party’s nomination on the first ballot if the 2016 GOP race remains a three-way contest.
Mr. Romney said whether or not Republicans are headed for an open convention depends on whether Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich both stay in the race “aggressively” through California, which votes on June 7 along with a handful of other states.
“If they’re both going at it aggressively right until the very end, then I think it’s very likely that Mr. Trump wins on the first ballot,” Mr. Romney said in an interview on “The David Gregory Show” podcast.
Mr. Romney said Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich divide the vote and would make it easier for Mr. Trump to win winner-take-all congressional districts and states to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination or get close enough to persuade uncommitted delegates.
“On the other hand, if either Mr. Cruz or Mr. Kasich decides to become inactive, if you will, after New York, then I think it’s likely we get to a contested convention, and at that point, you know, the bets are it’s going to be Cruz, Kasich or Trump — hard to figure out which one would ultimately be able to put together the coalition necessary to get the majority,” Mr. Romney said.
“If it remains three candidates, I think Mr. Trump gets it on the first ballot,” he said.
Mr. Romney has emerged as a leading anti-Trump voice in the 2016 GOP race. He campaigned for Mr. Kasich ahead of the March 15 Ohio primary but announced he was voting for Mr. Cruz ahead of the Utah caucuses later in March.
“At some point, you do what you think is absolutely right, and I simply could not stand by and say nothing about a candidate who I thought was taking the party, and potentially the country, in a very unfortunate direction,” Mr. Romney said on the podcast.
“So, I said what I believed and that may not make me real popular in a lot of corners, but frankly, the worst thing that could possibly happen to me politically has already happened,” Mr. Romney said. “So I’m not going to worry about that very much.”
Mr. Trump, in turn, has labeled Mr. Romney a “failed candidate.”
In announcing he was going to vote for Mr. Cruz, Mr. Romney said he would have voted for Mr. Kasich in Ohio.
“But a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely likely that Trumpism would prevail,” he said last month.
After Mr. Romney’s announcement about Utah, John Weaver, the Kasich campaign’s chief strategist, said the former governor is getting “bad political advice.”
Both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich have tried to pitch themselves as the preferred GOP alternative to Mr. Trump. The latest delegate tally, according to The Associated Press, has Mr. Trump with 744, Mr. Cruz with 559, and Mr. Kasich with 144.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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