Donald Trump looks to White House as Ted Cruz quits

Donald Trump looks to White House as Ted Cruz quits

U.S., May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Republican U.S. presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump arrives at his campaign victory party to speak to supporters after his rival, Senator Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race following the results of the Indiana state primary, at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York,  

Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday after winning the Indiana primary and hearing that Ted Cruz had quit the White House race. Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hugs a supporter after announcing the suspension of his campaign during an election night watch party at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Union Station on May 3, 2016 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Cruz lost the Indiana primary to Republican rival Donald Trump. Mr Cruz hugs a supporter after announcing the suspension of his campaign. He said he was doing so ‘with a heavy heart’ Lewandowski, Mr Trump’s campaign manager, at a rally in Indiana on Friday. He tweeted that crowd numbers were ‘amazing’ Mr Trump on Tuesday night: ‘We are going to make America great again . . . We’re going after Hillary Clinton’ 

Mr Cruz with his wife Heidi in Indianapolis: ‘We gave it everything we’ve got but the voters chose another path’. Mr Trump had tweeted that his rival should drop out if he failed to win the state. The ‘USA’ chant inside Trump rallies has often been countered by vocal protesters outside. Hundreds of protesters massed outside the Trump rally in South Bend as the polls closed on Tuesday. A strong police presence was in evidence outside the Trump rally in South Bend, following sporadic violence at some recent events. The Trump campaign’s populist messages have generated huge support among the Republican base. ‘Trump is almost impossible to stop now for the nomination,’ said Larry Sabato, a politics expert at the University of Virginia. 

Hillary Clinton looks almost certain to face Mr Trump in the election but rival Bernie Sanders presents an ongoing distraction. Mr Sanders’ win in Indiana comes after a series of losses to Mrs Clinton in the north-east and mid-Atlantic states. Mr Sanders remained upbeat about his chances in the West Virginia, Kentucky and California primaries in coming weeks. Mr Sanders’ latest victory will allow him to put further pressure on Mrs Clinton to adopt some of his key policy stances.

Donald Trump has become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, setting up a likely battle with Hillary Clinton in November, after a decisive victory in Indiana that forced Ted Cruz to abandon his campaign.

“It is a beautiful thing to watch and a beautiful thing to behold and we are going to make America great again,” Mr Trump said at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “We had a tremendous victory tonight . . . we’re going after Hillary Clinton.”  Sanders’ win creates problem for Clinton

Bernie Sanders has won Indiana’s Democratic primary by nearly 5 percentage points, frustrating Hillary Clinton’s hopes of turning her focus to a general election contest in which she looks almost certain to face Donald Trump.

Mr Cruz suspended his White House campaign after a disastrous performance in the Midwestern ‘Hoosier’ State, which was one of the last opportunities he had to prevent Mr Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination on the first ballot when the party holds its convention in Cleveland in July.

In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton, but she remains the overwhelming favorite for the party’s ticket.

“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,” Mr Cruz told despondent fans in Indianapolis. “Together, we left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we’ve got but the voters chose another path.”

Shortly after polls closed in the state known as the “Crossroads of America,” the Associated Press had projected that Mr Trump had won his seventh straight primary over Mr Cruz. John Kasich, the Ohio governor, remains in the race but has no chance of winning.

The result puts to rest the possibility of a contested convention because although Mr Kasich has not abandoned the race, he has shown no ability to beat Mr Trump in any state beyond his home terrain of Ohio.

Delegate counter : Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Results so far in the US presidential campaign, in what is a complex state-by-state process for electing candidates through delegates, culminating in the party conventions.

With 92 per cent of the ballots counted, Mr Trump had secured 52 per cent, which gave him at least 51 of the 57 delegates at stake. Mr Cruz trailed with 37 per cent, while Mr Kasich failed to reach double digits.

Mr Trump has accumulated 1,047 delegates, but will have no problem reaching 1,237 with Mr Cruz out of the race. Mr Trump has for months attacked his main rival as “Lyin’ Ted”, but on Tuesday he was uncharacteristically magnanimous.

“I don’t know if he likes me or he doesn’t like me, but he is one hell of a competitor,” Mr Trump said about Mr Cruz after his rival abandoned his quest for the Republican nomination.

In what was a relatively low-key speech by his standards, Mr Trump said the result in Indiana had been an “amazing” evening. “I didn’t expect this,” said the man who is notorious for his lack of humility on the campaign trail. But the outcome in Indiana highlighted what a remarkable campaign he has run, starting from his rambling launch speech last June when very few political pundits believed that he had even a long-shot at winning the nomination.

White House Countdown

Over the past nine months, Mr Trump has used his fame and now undeniable mastery of social media in a modern campaign to create a populist movement that has been propelled by anti-Washington sentiment around the country. The Republican base is particularly angry that the GOP has failed to rein in President Barack Obama despite controlling the Senate and holding the biggest majority in the House of Representatives in eight decades.

The New York businessman has generated a swell of support among the Republican base with his message about tackling illegal immigration, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the country, and being tougher on everyone, from China to Isis. The more the GOP establishment has raised concerns about his divisive rhetoric, the more he has climbed in the estimation of the voters who have handed him victories in 26 states across the nation.

I don’t know if he likes me or he doesn’t like me, but he is one hell of a competitor

The collapse of Mr Cruz in Indiana also effectively hobbled the #NeverTrump movement that has seen many establishment Republicans band together to defeat the man that they believe will both lose the White House race, but also cause the destruction of the GOP.

After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election to Mr Obama, the party conducted a postmortem, which concluded that it desperately needed to reach minority voters, and particularly Hispanics who represent the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. But party elites believe Mr Trump has dramatically set back those efforts because of his rhetoric about Mexicans and Muslims in particular.

One of the big questions following the result in Indiana is whether those Republicans who have actively campaigned against Mr Trump will now support the tycoon because of their even deeper dislike of Mrs Clinton.   Donald versus Hillary — the fight begins

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York on May 3, 2016, following the primary in Indiana. Donald Trump crushed his Republican rivals in Indiana's primary Tuesday, bringing him to the brink of outright victory in the presidential nomination race and dashing the hopes of a movement bent on stopping him. 

The most gripping postmodern political drama has started as the US general election effectively begins, writes Edward Luce.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee who has sparred with Mr Trump in recent months as the New York tycoon has accused the GOP of running a “crooked” nominating process, conceded that Mr Trump would head the party’s ticket in the general election. “Trump will be a presumptive  nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating Hillary Clinton ,Mr Priebus tweeted.

Mr Trump’s resounding result in Indiana — just the latest occasion where he has confounded expectations — essentially fires the starting gun on what many expect will be the ugliest presidential election race in history, as two candidates with very high unfavorable ratings battle for the White House.

Mrs Clinton tweeted that Mr Trump was now the presumptive Republican nominee, as she used the news to rally her supporters to donate money. “Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee. Chip in now if you agree we can’t let him become president,” Mrs Clinton tweeted.

While Mr Sanders has virtually no chance of taking the nomination from Mrs Clinton, his ability to keep winning states demonstrates that a large swath of Democratic voters distrust the former New York senator. Mr Trump has already signaled that he intends to exploit this weakness by repeatedly referring to her as “Crooked Hillary”.

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Commentary:

Looking almost TOO good...    I have a sneaking suspicion about Illuminati´s way of using their method of thesis-anti thesis + synthesis.  Could Trump be a plant?   Anyway,we had no other choice but to bet on the outsider,so let´s wait and see.

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