Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said that Sen. Marco Rubio’s exit from the GOP presidential race has set up a two-man race between himself and businessman Donald Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
Downplaying Gov. John Kasich’s win in Ohio, Mr. Cruz said during an election night rally in Houston that moving forward nation has a clear choice in the Republican contest.
“Only two campaigns have a plausible path to the nomination: ours and Donald Trump’s,” Mr. Cruz said. “Nobody else has any mathematical possibility whatsoever.”
Mr. Cruz finished second in Illinois and North Carolina, and was running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in Missouri.
“Only one campaign has beaten Donald Trump over and over and over again — not once, not twice, not three times, but nine times all across the country from Alaska to Maine,” Mr. Cruz said. “And going forward the choice is straighter forward. Do you want a candidate who shares your values or a candidate who has spent decades opposing your values?”
The problem for Mr. Cruz is that the chance of the two-person race that he and his supporters are hankering for eluded him Tuesday after Mr. Kasich scored his first win of the campaign by defending his home state, keeping him alive in the contest.
Indeed, Mr. Kasich, who has acknowledged that his chances of winning the nomination hinge on forcing a contested convention, promised supporters Tuesday that he would stick in the race through the Republican National Convention.
“We are going all the way to Cleveland and secure the Republican nomination!” he said.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, knocked Mr. Rubio from the race with a big win in Florida, and also came out on top in Illinois and North Carolina, expanding his lead in the chase for the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination before the convention in mid-July in Cleveland.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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