Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Tuesday night that he was suspending his campaign to be the GOP presidential candidate, potentially ending any real battle for the party's nomination.

Earlier in the evening NBC News projected that Donald Trump would easily win the GOP primary in Indiana.
"From the beginning I've said that I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory. Tonight, I'm sorry to say, it appears that path has been foreclosed," Cruz said during a Tuesday night speech. "The voters chose another path, and so with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign."

Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were seeking to keep Trump from reaching 1,237 delegates, which would allow them to force a convention fight. That in turn could possibly mean someone other than Trump coming out of as the GOP's general election candidate.

But that result appeared less likely after Trump's strong Indiana showing.

"Obviously Trump's victory in Indiana makes the road ahead more challenging," a representative from the #NeverTrump PAC said in a Tuesday evening statement, adding that the group will continue to seek to oppose him.
For its part, the Kasich campaign said in a statement posted on Facebook that the Indiana results "are not going to alter" the candidate's plan.

"Our strategy has been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open convention," the Kasich campaign said.

Just after NBC announced Trump's projected victory, the New York real estate magnate tweeted out an insult aimed at Cruz.



http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/03/ted-c...-campaign.html



Ted Cruz bowed out of the Republican presidential race Tuesday following a crushing loss to Donald Trump in Indiana, in speech to his supporters. It clears the path for real estate mogul Donald Trump to clinch the GOP nomination.

It was a remarkable turn of events in a presidential primary race that seemed destined — just weeks ago — to end in a contested convention this summer. Even in the final hours of the race in the Hoosier State, Cruz insisted he was staying in the race until June 7 — going so far as to attack his rival during a news conference as a “pathological liar” unfit for the White House.

In the end, the growing strength of Trump’s candidacy and Cruz’s own stumbles in the past two weeks were too much for Cruz to overcome. The Cruz, Kasich and anti-Trump forces had concocted elaborate plans to try to deprive Trump of the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination outright. But those plans hinged on money and momentum. After Tuesday night, it appeared that Cruz would have neither.

Cruz, a tea party favorite, had hoped to cobble together a winning coalition by consolidating the evangelical and libertarian wings of the Republican Party while also racking up commanding wins in the South. He was ultimately unable to achieve any of those things. Exit polls on Tuesday night showed that Indiana’s evangelical voters split their votes evenly between Trump and Cruz. The Texas senator had the edge among late deciders, who made up a quarter of voters, but it wasn’t enough.

He signaled that he was nearing the end Tuesday during an appearance on Dana Loesch’s radio show, stating that his campaign had “left it all on the field.”

“We are competing to the end as long as we have a viable path to victory,” he said. “We are competing hard in this state and I am hopeful and optimistic. But at this point, it’s in the hands of voters.”

Cruz’s final weeks as a presidential candidate were dominated by awkward moments. He forged an alliance with Ohio Gov. John Kasich that quickly crumbled. He named Carly Fiorina as his running mate, an unusual move for someone who is far from winning the nomination. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence endorsed him — while also offering kind words for Trump.

He was also ridiculed for referring to a basketball hoop as a “ring” and for seemingly failing to notice when Fiorina fell off a stage in front of him.

Still, Cruz outlasted more than a dozen Republican rivals demolished by Trump by adopting an early strategy of playing nice. The Texas Senator had cultivated his image as the ultimate outsider in Washington. He attempted to channel the same frustration against Washington that Trump so successfully harnessed as he avoided becoming one of Trump’s chief targets.

But Cruz’s strategy was predicated on the notion that Trump’s candidacy would ultimately implode — as a result of remarks that went too far or actions that American voters deemed unpresidential.

That never happened.

Supporters of Cruz questioned whether he had waited too long to take on the real estate magnate, as he did in no uncertain terms during his news conference on Tuesday.

In one memorable tweet in mid-December, Cruz noted that “the Establishment” was hoping for “a cage match” between him and Trump. “Sorry to disappoint,” he tweeted, “@realDonaldTrump is terrific.”

When he appeared to inch ahead of Trump in December, Trump turned his fire on Cruz, who was caught flat-footed. He pulled off a win in Iowa, but ultimately lost many of the southern states that were supposed to be his firewall.

When he entered the Senate three years ago, Cruz clearly had presidential ambitions. But few expected him to rise as quickly as he did — particularly as he earned the animosity of party leaders with his uncompromising stances and spotlight-seeking actions.

He began the Republican race by forgoing the usual exploratory committee and instead launching a bid for the White House with little preamble but much fanfare as he stood before thousands of students at Liberty University.

The framing for his candidacy was surprising: Cruz had built his political profile around the government shutdown, not his faith. But the speech signaled a strategy that Cruz pursued over the better part of a year — an effort to become the grass-roots candidate who brings together both evangelical voters and the angry, economically anxious base that had powered Republicans to historic wins in the 2014 midterms.

A cluster of super PACs announced that they had $37 million in commitments to help Cruz, raising the prospect that he could compete with the likes of Jeb Bush, whose super PAC raised more than $100 million last year.

Cruz’s strong organization and deep resources were one of the surprising story lines early in the Republican race. Even if he wasn’t winning much in the way of public support at that point, his critics conceded that he might have the means to compete late into the presidential cycle.

But like everyone else on the GOP side, Cruz ran into Trump.

When Trump began making a series of controversial statements in summer 2015, Cruz was one of the only rivals who refused to rebuke the ascendant GOP front-runner.

He began rising in national and Iowa polls after several strong debate performances, including one in which he blasted the moderator for encouraging the Republican-on-Republican quarrels that he claimed to deplore.

Trump began to take notice. By December, Trump was questioning Cruz’s position on ethanol policy and the veracity of his faith. By January, Trump unleashed an effective line of attack by questioning Cruz’s eligibility to run for the White House since he was born in Canada to an American mother.

Cruz, at times visibly irritated, began to strike back.

Before the Iowa caucuses, he repeatedly questioned Trump’s conservative credentials — and those attacks seemed to have an effect. Cruz edged out a small win over Trump in the Hawkeye State, and he was seen as having the potential to go the distance.

Cruz then beat expectations in New Hampshire, finishing third, ahead of Bush and Marco Rubio.

But in South Carolina, the state he hoped would be a springboard to other critical Southern contests, Cruz struggled badly — falling to third place and raising questions about the breadth of his appeal.

On the first Super Tuesday contest, Cruz again fell short with evangelicals, raising doubts about whether he could dominate among the group that was so key to his candidacy.

On Tuesday night, he said he was proud of his campaign and his stand for conservative principles. There was no word yet whether he would pledge his support to the presumptive Republican nominee.

http://kdvr.com/2016/05/03/ted-cruz-...diana-primary/


Meanwhile......



Donald Trump surged to a decisive victory in the Indiana Republican primary Tuesday, CNN projects, while Ted Cruz’s last-ditch efforts to win the state faltered, leaving Trump on the cusp of the nomination.

Though the real-estate mogul won’t secure the 1,237 delegates he needs to formally claim the nomination until June, his Indiana triumph makes it almost impossible to stop him.

Following his decisive wins in New York and other East Coast states, the Indiana victory could put Trump within 200 delegates of the magic number he needs to clinch the nomination.

Cruz now faces the agonizing choice of whether to remain in the race, with his attempt to force the party into a contested convention in tatters, or to bow out and cede the party nomination to his political nemesis.

The Texas senator tried everything to pull off a last ditch win in Indiana, including the unusual move of selecting Carly Fiorina as his running mate even though he wasn’t the nominee. He also forged a pact with John Kasich that would allow him to focus on Indiana while the Ohio governor would devote his time to later states.

But none of the moves seemed to work.

Trump’s candidacy has galvanized the GOP, bringing in voters — especially in regions like the Rust Belt — that might not otherwise be attracted to the party’s message. In the process, he’s toppled a GOP field that, at the start, included many well-respected governors and senators.

GOP elites now face the long-feared reality of Trump as an outsider nominee who will lead them into the fall campaign after splitting the party, overturning establishment and conservative power bases and alienating key general election voters with incendiary rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders hopes to upset national front-runner Hillary Clinton in Indiana. But even if he ends up on top, he is unlikely to cut deeply into her large delegate lead that has her on track for the nomination.

Trump’s dramatic victory caps a day of extraordinary developments in the Republican race.

Cruz, facing the prospect of an Indiana defeat, snapped after weeks of personal attacks from Trump that included fresh insinuations that his father was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald.

“I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump,” he told reporters at a morning news conference.

Cruz blasted Trump as a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen” and “a serial philanderer.”

He unleashed his full arsenal of insults in his attack on Trump.

“He is proud of being a serial philanderer … he describes his own battles with venereal diseases as his own personal Vietnam,” Cruz said, citing a decades-old Trump appearance on “The Howard Stern Show.”

“This man is a pathological liar, he doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies … in a pattern that is straight out of a psychology textbook, he accuses everyone of lying,” Cruz said as Indiana voters headed to cast their ballots. “Whatever lie he’s telling, at that minute he believes it … the man is utterly immoral,” Cruz said.

Trump hit back in a statement blasting Cruz as a “desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign.”

“It is no surprise he has resorted to his usual tactics of over-the-top rhetoric that nobody believes,” Trump said. “Over the last week, I have watched Lyin’ Ted become more and more unhinged as he is unable to react under the pressure and stress of losing, in all cases by landslides, the last six primary elections — in fact, coming in last place in all but one of them.

Trump added: “Today’s ridiculous outburst only proves what I have been saying for a long time, that Ted Cruz does not have the temperament to be President of the United States.”

The volley reflected the increasingly personal battle between Cruz and Trump in the final days of the Indiana contest. Earlier Tuesday, Trump had criticized Rafael Cruz, the senator’s father, calling him “disgraceful” after he urged evangelical voters in Indiana to reject his son’s rival.

Trump also referenced a report from the tabloid National Enquirer — without naming the publication — which alleged that it had identified Rafael Cruz in a photo with Lee Harvey Oswald months prior to the JFK assassination. CNN has not independently confirmed that report — and there is no evidence that it is true.

“And (Ted Cruz’s) father, you know, was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s, you know, being shot. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox and Friends.” “I mean what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”

Trump went into Tuesday leading the GOP field with 1,002 delegates and needing to win just 47% of the 502 remaining delegates on offer. Cruz has 572 delegates and Kasich has 156. Neither man can now reach 1,237 delegates.

Indiana is not a classic winner-take-all contest on the Republican side. To win all 57 Republican delegates, a candidate must win the statewide popular vote and the popular vote in all nine of the state’s congressional districts.

A win for Clinton on Tuesday in Indiana, with 83 pledged Democrats on offer, would further complicate Sanders’ rationale for pushing on to the end of the campaign in June and possibly on to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July. A Sanders victory, however, would provide a morale boost to his struggling campaign but do little to dim Clinton’s prospects of becoming the Democratic nominee.

Going into the Indiana primary, Clinton has 2,179 of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination, including superdelegates — senior party officials and lawmakers who can vote however they choose at the convention. She only needs to win 20% of the remaining delegates at stake to formally capture the nomination.

Sanders has 1,400 delegates so far, including superdelegates, and he needs to capture 97% of the remaining delegates to overhaul Clinton. There are 1,016 delegates remaining to be contested in the campaign. Clinton leads Sanders in the pledged delegate count by 1,666 to 1,359 and by 513 superdelegates to Sanders’ 41.

The painful state of the race for Sanders means that his only hope of winning the nomination would be to convince Democratic superdelegates at the convention to abandon the former secretary of state — an unlikely scenario considering that group is largely made up of party insiders long aligned with Clinton.

That is one reason why the Clinton campaign has begun stressing that it is time to unite the party and concentrate on the race against Republicans in the fall.

But the Vermont Senator used his public performances in Indiana to highlight what he says are stark differences on trade. He also rebuked her over her vote in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war, and demanded a $15 minimum wage.

“Let Indiana be the 18th state to join the political revolution!” Sanders said at a rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Monday, as he battled to close a four point deficit to Clinton revealed in the NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.

http://kdvr.com/2016/05/03/donald-tr...diana-primary/



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