Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said in a radio interview that aired Wednesday he plans to decide in the coming days whether to endorse a candidate before the state’s Republican presidential primary on April 5 but that statistically speaking, only Sen. Ted Cruz has a shot to take down GOP front-runner Donald Trump at this point.
“I think it’s fair to say that my views, my beliefs, my strategy overall would probably be more aligned with either Senator Ted Cruz or Governor John Kasich,” Mr. Walker told radio host Charlie Sykes.
Mr. Walker suspended his own presidential campaign in September, and encouraged others at the time to consider dropping out so voters could focus on a more limited number of candidates “who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner.”
“I think if you’re looking at the numbers objectively, Ted Cruz — Senator Cruz is the only one who’s got a chance other than Donald Trump to win the nomination,” Mr. Walker said in the interview. “Statistically, my friend Governor Kasich cannot.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is in third in the delegate count behind Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz, has made the case that nobody is going to get the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the convention in July, and that his electability and record will help move delegates in his direction at a contested convention.
Most delegates are bound on the first ballot to adhere to results from the GOP primaries and caucuses, but many will be freed up to support other candidates on subsequent ballots if no one gets a majority.
“I’m still of the opinion that for all the hype that some say, I don’t think an open convention is a bad thing — and I stress, it is an open convention,” Mr. Walker said.
“I think it’s fairly clear that if the front-runner doesn’t have 1,237 and the convention’s wide open, then it’s tough to say — whether it’s someone who’s already been in the running up until that point or it’s somebody completely new — but I think at that point, for the party activists and others, I would have a hard time imagining that if he didn’t have the votes at that point via the delegates, that somehow they would materialize at the convention,” he said.
Mr. Walker did qualify that by saying most of his predictions throughout the campaign season, like other forecasts, have been “wildly off the mark, because this is an unconventional campaign.”
Mr. Trump has warned against nominating another candidate if he heads into the convention with the most delegates but is short of the 1,237 number.
Mr. Walker acknowledged how some people would be frustrated with that, but said that “the rules are the rules.”
“I don’t care who it is — if you don’t get 1,237, then the rules very clearly lay out what happens at the convention, and we’ll have to see what happens,” he said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.