Senator Ted Cruz dealt a major blow to Republican front-runner Donald Trump as he won the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday by a landslide, increasing the chances of a bitter convention floor battle in Cleveland in July to settle the nomination issue.
And on the Democratic side, Senator Bernie Sanders inflicted a defeat of near-identical proportions on front-runner Hillary Clinton in what was his sixth consecutive primary victory.
“Tonight is a turning point…Together we will a majority of the delegates,” Cruz exulted at a victory rally in Milwaukee, even as the Trump campaign sought to trash him as “a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Trump”.
The upshot of Cruz’s defeat of Trump by 13 per cent in Wisconsin, collecting 33 out of 36 delegates with six more still to be decided, is that it could further weaken Trump’s chances of mustering an overall 1,237 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination, despite the fact that he may well have a friendly turf in the next few primaries, notably his home State of New York.
Trump, as of Wednesday morning, had a total of 740 delegates against Cruz’s 514 and Ohio Governor John Kasich’s 143. If it is going to be very hard for Trump to get the requisite numbers in the remaining primaries, it may be next to impossible for Cruz as he will have to garner more than 90 per cent of the delegates in them.
In the Democratic arena, Sanders and his supporters are also eyeing a possible convention battle, but the Clinton campaign is confident that she will sail through easily. That apart, Clinton’s supporters believe she can count on the large number of ‘superdelegates’ who have declared support to her as opposed to very few for Sanders.
After Wisconsin, Clinton’s delegate tally stands at 1,274 against Sanders’ 1,027. A total of 2,383 delegates are needed to clinch the Democratic nomination. Apart from these pledged delegates decided by primaries, there is a pool of 712 ‘superdelegates’ in which as many as 469 have declared their support for Clinton as against just 31 for Sanders. The ‘superdelegates’, however, can switch their support to one or the other candidate.
Despite the looming challenge of gaining enough delegates, Cruz kept up the morale of his supporters, asserting: “I am more and more convinced that our campaign is going to win the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination. Either before Cleveland or at Cleveland ... we will win a majority of the delegates.”
The Trump campaign, on the other hand, is supremely confident about winning New York which holds its primary next on April 19 and the ones to follow. “Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee,” it said.
Kasich, despite trailing far behind, is unprepared to quit the race, much to the chagrin of both Trump and Cruz, who believe that his continued presence is making it that much harder to garner delegates. He is evidently counting on some surprises at the convention. As he put it on Tuesday, “There’s going to be an open convention, and it’s going to be cool.”
Clinton, like Trump, looks for a home-State boost in New York. But Sanders, the Senator from Vermont, claims he can spring a surprise or two there, as one who knows a little about New York, having spent his first 18 years there.
By winning seven of the last eight primaries and caucuses, Sanders has been outdoing Clinton on fund raising in a big way. In March alone, he raised $44 million against her $15 million, thus helping him to fuel his campaign a lot better lately.