Gov. John Kasich may have won his home state of Ohio on Tuesday night, but his remaining rivals say he has no interest in staying in the presidential race. If you ask Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, they’ll tell you Kasich is nothing more than a nuisance.
At his victory party after yesterday’s primary results, Cruz announced he was more than ready to take on Trump alone. He and Trump are the only candidates with a credible path to the nomination, he said — an idea he fully maintained by his team of advisors.
“There’s almost no chance he’ll ever be nominated,” Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan Republican national committeeman who is advising Cruz on convention strategy, told POLITICO. “It’s a two-man race.”
The math is certainly on their side.
Their confidence is based on the fact that Trump and Cruz will almost certainly control the lion’s share of the 2,472 delegates attending the July convention. Together, they won more than 1,000 delegate slots compared to Kasich’s 136. And those delegates will ultimately approve the rules governing the contentious convention.
Cruz insisted that if Kasich stays in the race, just facilitate trump. He and his team will do everything in their power to prevent the governor from reaching the July convention.
Trump’s team also made it clear it would not change any convention rules to allow Kasich to participate.
Some pundits, like David Limbaugh, see Kasich as the GOP’s modern Ralph Nader. He likens Kasich to a “self-serving spectacle” and urges him to end this “insane farce.”
Excluding Kasich, there are now 3 groups: Trump, Cruz, and none. “None” helps Cruz or elects Trump. Kasich is a selfish sideshow.
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) March 16, 2016
