Team up

Cruz and Kasich team up to stop Trump

By Katie Glueck and Kyle Cheney

Ted Cruz and John Kasich have begun coordinating their campaign strategy to stop Donald Trump, an abrupt alliance announced Sunday night that includes Kasich quitting his efforts in Indiana and Cruz clearing a path for the Ohio governor in Oregon and New Mexico.

“To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead,” Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe said in a statement.

Trump fired back late Sunday on Twitter, writing, “Wow, just announced that Lyin’ Ted and Kasich are going to collude in order to keep me from getting the Republican nomination. DESPERATION!”

He added, for good measure: “Lyin’ Ted and Kasich are mathematically dead and totally desperate. Their donors & special interest groups are not happy with them. Sad!”

Trump followed up early Monday morning with a lengthier statement released by his campaign, calling out both rivals for reverting to "collusion" to stop him.

"When two candidates who have no path to victory get together to stop a candidate who is expanding the party by millions of voters, (all of whom will drop out if I am not in the race) it is yet another example of everything that is wrong in Washington and our political system," he said. "This horrible act of desperation, from two campaigns who have totally failed, makes me even more determined, for the good of the Republican Party and our country, to prevail!"

The new Cruz-Kasich pact is an acknowledgment that neither man can overtake Trump in the race, and both know their best shot at preventing Trump from clinching the nomination outright is to team up to block his path and force a contested convention. And it may still be too late: Trump is closing in on the number of delegates he needs to win the nomination.

The deal also highlights the urgency the anti-Trump forces feel in Indiana, where a strong Cruz performance in the May 3 primary could deny the Manhattan billionaire 57 of the delegates he needs to reach a majority before the Republican National Convention convenes in July. For now, Trump leads in the RealClearPolitics average of Indiana polls by 6.3 percentage points. Cruz is competing hard, however, and supportive super PACs had plans to spend more than $1 million there in an ad buy that included an anti-Kasich spot.

The move allows Kasich to focus on two smaller-market states where his limited campaign cash might have greater impact than it would in Indiana. Kasich ended March with barely more than $1 million on hand.

But it puts Indiana’s handful of pro-Kasich delegates in an awkward spot: defending a decision to back a candidate who is intentionally forfeiting their state. Kasich’s field offices in Indiana are expected to shutter this week, and he canceled his remaning events there.

Tom John, one of those pro-Kasich delegates and a local GOP leader in Indiana, said he has no qualms supporting Kasich at a contested convention despite the strategy shift. “This strikes me as a choice made based on the limited campaign time, and so it made sense for both campaigns to do this,” he said. “Who I support is still about the best Republican option for the fall election.”

Previously, the Cruz campaign had largely refused to acknowledge the Ohio governor’s presence in the race except to dismiss him as a spoiler, and had insisted that only a two-man race between Cruz and Trump would halt the real estate mogul’s momentum.

“Who?” Roe replied last week, when asked by reporters about Kasich.

The Cruz campaign had also previously planned to compete in those states, especially in New Mexico, with a memo from the campaign last month saying data showed that Cruz could win a majority of that state’s delegates.

Also Sunday, Kasich chief strategist John Weaver announced, “We will shift our campaign’s resources West and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana.”

“In turn, we will focus our time and resources in New Mexico and Oregon, both areas that are structurally similar to the Northeast politically, where Gov. Kasich is performing well,” Weaver wrote. “We would expect independent third-party groups to do the same and honor the commitments made by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns.”

Cruz is well ahead of Kasich in the delegate count, but both currently lag well behind Trump and have acknowledged that at this point their best shot at beating him would come at a contested convention.

“Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland, where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee,” Weaver said in the statement.