Rivals defend joining forces to halt Trump
Declaring the Republican presidential contest at “a fork in the road,” Ted Cruz and John Kasich defended their extraordinary new alliance on Monday as the party’s last, best chance to stop Donald Trump, even as the New York billionaire surged toward another big delegate haul.
Trump, the Republican front-runner, lashed out at what he called collusion by desperate rivals, intensifying his attacks on the GOP presidential nomination system on the eve of Tuesday’s round of primary elections in the Northeast.
Cruz, a Texas senator, and Kasich, the Ohio governor, announced the terms of an unprecedented agreement late Sunday night to coordinate primary strategies in three of the 15 remaining primary states.
Kasich will step back in the May 3 Indiana contest to let Cruz bid without interference for voters who don’t like Trump.
The arrangement does not address Tuesday’s primaries, where Trump is expected to add to his already hefty delegate lead.
Yet the shift offers increasingly desperate Trump foes a glimmer of hope in their long and frustrating fight to keep him from amassing enough delegates to seal his nomination and avoid a contested national convention in July.
Trump is the only Republican candidate who can clinch the GOP presidential nomination before his party’s national convention.
Eliminated from reaching that total in the primaries, Cruz and Kasich can only hope to block Trump from reaching a majority — and a first-round convention victory — and thus force a contested convention where delegates could select a different nominee.