Did he or Didn't he???

Trump declares race won, but it’s not

Mathematically eliminated, his rivals won't let go. 

By Eli Stokols

Donald Trump strode into the lobby of Trump Tower, the marble agleam in red and blue floodlights, past cheering supporters in cocktail attire and declared the long fight for the Republican nomination over.

“I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely,” he told reporters Tuesday night after five larger-than-expected victories across the northeast that helped him pick up 109 of the 118 delegates up for grabs.

“This was to me our biggest night,” he continued, pointing out the margin of his victories. “I’m really honored to have hit over 60 [percent] in every state with three people in the race.”

Here, claiming victory in this spot for a second straight week, was the blustery billionaire laying claim to the Republican Party he believes he has earned the right to lead—and, standing in front of his family, a smirking Gov. Chris Christie just over his right shoulder and Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson just over his left, giving definition to a changing conservative coalition.

After months as the clear GOP frontrunner, having finally mathematically eliminated his last rival, Ted Cruz, from a win outside of a contested convention, Trump called for his two remaining challengers to quit. “Senator Cruz and Governor Kasich should really get out of the race now,” he said. “Honestly, they have no path to victory.”

He’s right, of course. Cruz can no longer win the 1,237 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination outright, and Kasich, who as Trump noted is now “one for 46,” was mathematically eliminated long ago.

Asked about Cruz’s campaign acknowledging Monday that it’s vetting possible vice presidential nominees including Carly Fiorina, Trump was blunt: “He’s wasting his time.”

Moments before Trump spoke, as Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania victory speech blared from the flat screen TVs set up in the lobby, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, declared the general election match-up “effectively set.” And during his own 37-minute press conference, Trump spent far more time attacking Clinton than either Cruz or Kasich.

“She’ll be a horrible president,” Trump declared. “She knows nothing about job creation. Her husband signed NAFTA. She knows nothing about jobs, except jobs for herself.”

Trump is headed to Washington Wednesday to deliver a speech outlining more of his foreign policy views, part of an ongoing effort to deliver more substance on policy as he attempts to pivot into general election mode. But the Trump campaign’s $900,000 in spending on television ads in Indiana and its staffers on the ground belie the candidate’s bluster and reveal that GOP nomination fight is hardly settled.

Trump, while expressing confidence about winning Indiana and delegate-rich California on June 7, told reporters he plans to win the nomination on the first ballot at the convention, either by locking up the necessary 1,237 delegates “before the end of the process, but if not, between then and the convention,” he said. “They have lots of [unbound] delegates and we only need a small amount.”

Cruz and Kasich, as they now have no choice but to acknowledge, remain in the race only because of a belief that they can—and must—stop Trump by keeping him from winning the nomination on the first ballot at July’s RNC convention, where they could potentially win on subsequent ballots as delegates are freed up to vote however they choose.

The anti-Trump Republican establishment tried to dismiss Trump’s five-state sweep Tuesday as a foregone conclusion, one already “baked in” to their delegate math.

“Trump won the Acela states he was expected to,” said Tim Miller, a spokesman for the Our Principles PAC, a group founded in order to prevent Trump from winning the nomination. “It doesn't change the delegate math, and he still has an uphill climb to 1,237.”

Ninety minutes before Trump took the stage, Cruz looked to rally supporters in Indiana, trying to assume the mantle of a plucky underdog in the small, wood-paneled gymnasium where the famous basketball movie “Hoosiers” was filmed 30 years ago.

Trump operatives, watching from the campaign’s fifth floor offices in Trump Tower, didn’t find the Texas senator’s words to be inspirational. “It was practically a concession speech,” one adviser said. “It was like he’s preparing his followers to hear the worst.”

Trump’s campaign now acknowledges the importance of the delegate math it may have been slow to prioritize. But it laughed at attempts by Cruz and anti-Trump Republicans to convince themselves that a second straight week of primary wins and the momentum they create doesn’t matter.

“If anybody wants to say five more wins for Trump doesn’t thrust the Trump Train forward, it does,” said Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime general counsel. “It’s all about momentum. It’s not going to get to the convention, that’s the point.”

It’s not just momentum for Trump heading into Indiana but a string of convincing wins that add to the very aura of inevitability he spent Tuesday night trying to project—an aura, he believes, that will make it increasingly difficult for GOP officials to allow another candidate to win the nomination at a convention.

Referring to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as “a very good man,” Trump sketched a hypothetical scenario in which he fell just a handful of delegates short of the 1,237 threshold and was denied the nomination even after winning millions more votes than his nearest rival.

“How do you say to [voters], we’re going to choose a man who lost by 5 million votes because Trump was 14 delegates short on the first ballot?” he said. “I don’t think you can.”

Asked if he’s offended that so many Republicans refuse to accept him as the party’s new standard-bearer, Trump simply disputed the question’s premise.

“I think the party is seeing me that way,” he said. “I’m getting calls that…like I said, you wouldn’t believe.”

Trump said many of the calls are from people who have said “such horrible things about me and now they want to join the team.”

“Corey can tell you. Paul can tell you,” he continued, referring to Lewandowski and Paul Manafort, the convention strategist brought in last month.

But when Trump left the stage, disappearing into a swarm of ‘selfies’ and handshakes, neither Lewandowski nor Manafort were available to answer any questions as the candidate’s intro music, “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, blared throughout the lobby, playing him off the stage.