Trump is presumptive nominee, US Republican chairman says

WASHINGTON — Real-estate developer Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee after his top challenger, Senator Ted Cruz, dropped out after a crushing defeat in Tuesday’s Indiana primary.

Mr Trump’s win means a scenario thought unimaginable just a few months ago — that he would be the Republican standard-bearer for the White House in 2016 — is now virtually certain. The victory puts him well within reach of securing enough delegates to secure the nomination outright and avoid a floor fight at the party’s national convention in July.

The Republican party’s national chairman, Reince Priebus, said on Twitter that Mr Trump is now the presumptive nominee of his party.

Mr Cruz announced that he’ll halt his presidential campaign during an appearance in Indiana with supporters.

“Tonight, I’m sorry to say it appears that path has been foreclosed,” he said. “Together, we left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we’ve got, but the voters chose another path.”

Mr Trump’s massive win, projected to include at least 45 of the 57 delegates at stake, followed a day of exchanges with Mr Cruz that were especially hostile and personal in a nomination fight already notable for its rancor.

In the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders defeated Ms Hillary Clinton in Indiana, an embarrassing setback for the former secretary of state. The loss, however, is unlikely to derail her path to the nomination, setting up an all-New Yorker presidential contest in November with Mr Trump.

A week ago, after landslide wins in five northeastern state primaries, Trump declared himself the “presumptive nominee”, a description that the Indiana result bolsters even if Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich fight on through the last contests in June.

The results also dealt a blow to the “stop Trump” movement, a ragtag coalition of donors and others who had vowed to block a candidate many in the Republican establishment view as detrimental to the party’s chances in November. At least some anti-Trump forces showed no signs of backing down.

‘UNPREDICTABLE YEAR’

“A substantial number of delegates remain up for grabs in this highly unpredictable year,” Ms Katie Packer Gage, who leads the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, said in a statement after the results became clear. “We continue to give voice to the belief of so many Republicans that Trump is not a conservative, does not represent the values of the Republican Party, cannot beat Hillary Clinton, and is simply unfit to be president of the United States.”

With 49 per cent of precincts reporting results, Mr Trump had 52.8 per cent of the vote. He was followed by Mr Cruz at 36.7 per cent and Mr Kasich at 7.8 per cent.

Mr Kasich will remain in the race unless a candidate reaches 1,237 bound delegates before the convention in July because he’s best positioned to win the general election in November, chief strategist John Weaver said in a memo released by the campaign after the outcome was clear in Indiana.

“Tonight’s results are not going to alter Governor Kasich’s campaign plans,” Mr Weaver said. “Our strategy has been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open convention.

EXIT POLLS

Preliminary results from exit polling conducted Tuesday by the television networks and the Associated Press showed some of the factors behind Mr Trump’s victory.

He won among all age groups, except voters 17 to 24; all education levels, except those with post-graduate degrees, and among all income groups, according to CNN. Mr Trump also beat Cruz among born-again or evangelical Christians, 49 per cent to 44 per cent, a voting bloc that Mr Cruz had courted intensely and is more naturally aligned with him than Trump.

Six in 10 Republican voters said they want an “outsider candidate”, higher than the 52 per cent average in previous party primaries this year, ABC News reported. More than 90 per cent said they are either very or somewhat worried about the economy, exit polls show, according to AP.

Nearly six in 10 Republican primary voters said the nomination process has divided the party, much higher than the 22 per cent of Democratic primary voters who said that. Almost three-quarters of Democratic voters said they think the primary process has energised the party, while just 40 per cent of Republicans held that view.

In the days before the ballots were cast in Indiana, Mr Cruz had taken to describing the state’s primary as a “cliff” facing the Republican Party and nation. It remains unclear what Mr Cruz will do now that he’s been pushed over the edge.

In a sign that he has no plans to succumb to Mr Trump, Mr Cruz announced campaign stops Wednesday in Nebraska and Washington State, where primaries will be held later this month. He made that announcement before the Indiana results were known.

The junior senator from Texas had long argued that if he could get a one-on-one matchup with Mr Trump, he’d emerge the victor. That didn’t happen, even after Mr Cruz cut a deal that kept Mr Kasich from campaigning in the state.

Indiana’s 57 delegates represent the biggest remaining cache other than California among the contests still to be held. The statewide winner gets 30, with each of nine congressional districts also awarding three each to the victor there.

If Mr Trump manages a sweep or near-sweep of Indiana’s delegates, he’ll be well positioned to win the nomination on June 7 when California, New Jersey, and three other states hold the final contests. In the remaining nine Republican primaries, he’d need to win less than half of the delegates.

Prior to Tuesday’s voting, Mr Trump led the Republican race with 996 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally. He was followed by Mr Cruz at 565 and Mr Kasich at 153. Mr Trump would need to accumulate 1,237 delegates to take the nomination and avoid a Republican convention fight.

Mr Trump and Mr Cruz spent most of the past week in Indiana. The front-runner focused his message on manufacturing losses that include 1,400 jobs at a Carrier Corp plant in Indianapolis, while maintaining his mocking of Mr Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted”.

The rhetoric turned especially nasty on Tuesday, as voters were going to the polls, with Mr Trump saying Mr Cruz’s father had a link to John F Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mr Cruz responded by calling Trump a “pathological liar”, an amoral “narcissist”, and a proud “serial philanderer”, a video clip that could make its way into a Democratic ad for the general election.

Mr Cruz had tried numerous headline-grabbing moves to try to shake up the race. He’s criticised Mr Trump for receiving the endorsement of “convicted rapist” Mike Tyson, who served prison time after the champion boxer was found guilty of a sexual attack on a Miss Black America contestant in an Indianapolis hotel room in 1991.

He also announced a multi-state, non-compete agreement with Mr Kasich, named former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina as his running mate, and repeatedly hammered Mr Trump for indifference about transgender women using women’s restrooms.

Indiana’s social-conservative leanings offered Mr Cruz potentially fertile ground, but his pact with Mr Kasich to have the Ohio governor avoid campaigning there proved unpopular with voters. He also called a basketball hoop a “ring”, a major gaffe in a place where the sport is part of the state’s fabric.

In the closing days of the campaign, Mr Cruz received a less-than-full-throated endorsement from Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who praised Mr Trump at the same time. Mr Trump has the backing of former Indiana University basketball coaching legend Bobby Knight, as well as former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz. BLOOMBERG