Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday said no candidate is going to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination before the party’s convention in July, predicting that he and GOP front-runner Donald Trump are headed toward a battle at an open convention in Cleveland.
“We are headed to a contested convention,” Mr. Cruz said 1210 WPHT radio in Pennsylvania. “At this point, nobody is getting 1,237.”
“Donald is going to talk all the time about other folks not getting to 1,237. He’s not getting there, either. None of us are getting to 1,237,” Mr. Cruz said.
“And we’re going to go into Cleveland. I’m going to have a ton of delegates. Donald’s going to have a ton of delegates. And it is going to be a battle in Cleveland to see who can earn a majority of the delegates who have been elected by the people,” he said.
Mr. Trump was projected to win nearly all of the 95 GOP delegates in New York after his blowout win there Tuesday, which still gives the billionaire businessman a legitimate path to 1,237 before Cleveland.
But the results mean Mr. Cruz now has to think about swaying “unbound” delegates and those committed to other candidates on the first ballot.
Mr. Cruz acknowledged Mr. Trump had a “good night” on Tuesday.
“He won his home state — everyone expected him to win his home state,” he said. “Everyone knew he was going to.”
Mr. Cruz pointed out that prior to Tuesday, he had picked up wins in Wisconsin, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming.
“What happened was Donald Trump and all of his supporters and all of his media surrogates were very unhappy that he kept losing, and so they began screaming about voterless elections,” he said. “It’s a very bizarre concept, given that over 1.3 million people voted, and it’s all nonsense. It’s complete nonsense.”
In states like Colorado and Wyoming, Mr. Cruz picked up delegates that were decided through convention processes, rather than primaries or caucuses. Mr. Trump, in turn, blasted the delegate process as “rigged” after losing delegates to Mr. Cruz in those states.
“What is happening is we’re beating Donald Trump in election after election after election. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t handle losing very well, and so he cries and he whines, but he also tries to distract,” he said.
Mr. Trump once again called the system “crooked” and “rigged” in his victory speech in New York Tuesday evening.
“We’re going to go back to the old way. It’s called you vote, and you win,” Mr. Trump said.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who was projected to pick up a few delegates in New York, had already been mathematically eliminated from reaching the 1,237 number before Cleveland.
Mr. Trump said on Twitter Wednesday morning that all Mr. Cruz can be at this point is a “spoiler.”
“Ted Cruz is mathematically out of winning the race. Now all he can do is be a spoiler, never a nice thing to do. I will beat Hillary!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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