Donald Trump will sweep Tuesday’s five Republican primary contests, NBC News projects, as his GOP rivals scramble to stop him from securing the party’s presidential nomination.
The businessman will win the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticutprimaries by “significant” margins, according to NBC. He will also walk away with Delaware and Rhode Island.
The results will make it tougher for Trump’s competitors to limit his delegates and prevent him from winning the nomination outright, though Trump still may not reach the needed 1,237 before the party’s convention in July. Pennsylvania is the night’s biggest prize, with 71 delegates in total. However, only 17 of those are awarded by statewide vote, while 54 uncommitted delegates are elected.
Trump entered the contests with a 286 delegate lead over Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, according to NBC News. Coming into Tuesday, Cruz stood little chance of reaching a majority of pledged delegates, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich was mathematically eliminated from doing so.
“I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely,” Trump said from New York on Tuesday night, contending his competitors have “no path to victory.”
The Cruz and Kasich campaigns on Sunday night announced they would coordinate to curb Trump’s votes. Cruz will focus his campaign on Indiana’s primary, which is set to be a tight race between him and Trump, while Kasich will channel his efforts into Oregon and New Mexico. By holding back on campaigning in certain states, they hope to consolidate the non-Trump vote. The effort was met with some skepticism.
Speaking to supporters in Indiana on Tuesday night, Cruz shrugged off the losses and said the primaries would move to more “favorable terrain.” He took digs at Trump ahead of the state’s critical primary next week.
“The media is going to say ‘the race is over’ … But I’ve got good news for you. Tonight, this campaign moves back to favorable terrain,” Cruz said.
Both Cruz and Kasich will need to pin their hopes on winning an open convention in Cleveland. Voters expressed their views on that prospect on Tuesday night.
Among Republican voters in the primaries, 69 percent said the candidate with the most votes, which would likely be Trump, should win in a contested convention, according to an early exit poll from NBC News.
Ninety-one percent of Trump supporters said the candidate with the most votes should win. As could be expected, only 41 percent of non-Trump supporters agreed.
Meanwhile, 63 percent of Tuesday’s Kasich supporters said they will not vote for Trump if he is the party’s nominee in November, compared with 41 percent of Cruz supporters.
Additionally, 77 percent of voters in Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania said they voted for their candidate, not against an opponent, according to an early exit poll.
Trump cried foul on his rivals’ move to cooperate, contending they are trying to “collude.” The GOP front-runner has repeatedly complained about what he calls efforts by established politicians and party leadership to deny him the nomination.
Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday urged Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to run as an independent should he lose the party’s nomination. This would presumably sap votes from likely Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Trump heads next to Indiana, where he will hold a rally on Wednesday, joined by famed University of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight. An average of recent polls in the state shows Trump ahead by about six points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Be the first to comment