Kasich, Cruz collude to topple Trump
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich have announced an alliance in an effort to defeat the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, real-estate mogul Donald Trump.
Since both candidates are mathematically unable to reach the 1,237 delegate threshold required to secure the party nomination, the only strategy left to them is to deny Trump the nomination, resulting in a brokered Republican convention.
At a brokered convention, public primary elections are disregarded and party insiders determine who will be the nominee in the general election.
So Cruz is taking his campaign to Indiana, while Kasich is going to Oregon, with each candidate pledging not to interfere with the other.
The partnership is especially helpful to Kasich, who has yet to win a state aside from Ohio.
“Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland, where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the Party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee,” said Jeff Weaver, Kasich’s top campaign strategist.
Trump issued a scathing response to the partnership on Facebook, saying, “Collusion is often illegal in many other industries and yet these two Washington insiders have had to revert to collusion in order to stay alive.
“Because of me, everyone now sees that the Republican primary system is totally rigged. When two candidates who have no path to victory get together to stop a candidate who is expanding the party by millions of voters, (all of whom will drop out if I am not in the race) it is yet another example of everything that is wrong in Washington and our political system.”
The Republican national convention will be held this July in Cleveland.
UPDATE: In a strange twist of events, Kasich said today that Indiana voters should still vote for him, he’s just not campaigning there.
When pressed on the nature of his alliance with Cruz, he said that everybody needed to “chill out.”
“I’m not campaigning in Indiana and [Cruz] is not campaigning in these other states. That’s all. That’s all it is,” Kasich said. “It’s not a big deal.”
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