Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Donald Trump Rivals Brace for Crippling Loss in Indiana (VIDEO)

Well, let's hope so.

This primary season's dragged on far too long. Hopefully, even more of the GOP establishment will start to coalesce around Trump, and then folks can figure out a way to respond to the left's barrage of smears heading our way before the convention in Cleveland.

Or, that is, in a rational world.

At the New York Times, "Donald Trump's Foes Fear Indiana Primary Could Be Decisive Blow":

The coalition of Republicans opposed to Donald J. Trump’s candidacy braced Monday for a debilitating setback as he appeared poised for a victory in Indiana that would put him on track to seal the Republican nomination by the time primary voting ends next month.

The Indiana vote has emerged as a decisive and perhaps final test for Senator Ted Cruz, who has abandoned hope of overtaking Mr. Trump in the race but still aims to throw the Republican nominating fight to a contested convention in July. Mr. Cruz, of Texas, has pleaded with Indiana voters in recent days not to anoint Mr. Trump as the party’s standard-bearer, and has devised a series of long-shot tactics to derail him in the state.

On Monday, that mission of persuasion took on a vividly literal form for Mr. Cruz during a campaign stop in Marion, Ind. Confronted there by determined hecklers bearing Trump campaign signs, Mr. Cruz insisted to one that he was making a mistake.

“Donald Trump is deceiving you,” he said. “He is playing you for a chump.”

Polls now show that Mr. Trump has a clear advantage in Indiana, where 57 delegates are at stake. A survey conducted by Marist College for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found Mr. Trump leading Mr. Cruz by 15 points there, and close to capturing an outright majority of the vote. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio was in a distant third place.

Mr. Cruz has signaled that he intends to forge ahead irrespective of the outcome in Indiana in a bid to block Mr. Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates required to claim the nomination. He spent part of the weekend campaigning in California, which is among the last states to vote, on June 7, and collected the endorsement of former Gov. Pete Wilson, who warned that Mr. Trump would doom the party as its nominee.

But Mr. Wilson conceded in an interview on Monday that a defeat in Indiana would imperil Mr. Cruz’s path forward. To win California, Mr. Wilson said, “the first thing he needs to do is win in Indiana.”

Without such a victory, Mr. Wilson said, “I think it’s much more difficult. The nearer that Trump gets to having the magic number, the more difficult it is.”
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