Bob Daemmrich / The Texas Tribune
Ted Cruz, shown here celebrating his early victory in the Iowa caucuses. Now he predicts the GOP nominee will be selected at a contested convention.
After a bruising defeat in New York, Ted Cruz is retooling his outlook on how the Republican Party will pick its nominee.
The U.S. senator from Texas, once hopeful he could win the nomination without a contested convention, is now conceding a floor fight is his only hope. With frontrunner Donald Trump collecting almost all of the 95 delegates that were at stake Tuesday in his home state, Cruz appears to be mathematically eliminated from capturing the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination before the convention.
“We are headed to a contested convention,” Cruz said Wednesday morning in an interview on Philadelphia radio. “At this point, nobody is getting 1,237. Donald is going to talk all the time about other folks not getting to 1,237. He’s not getting there either.”
Declaring victory Tuesday night in his home state, Trump sought to project the image of a frontrunner closing in on the nomination, saying the GOP field does not have “much of a race anymore.” Cruz, Trump added, “is just about mathematically eliminated.”
The latest delegate count from the Associated Press gives Trump 845, Cruz 559 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich 147. By most accounts, Cruz would have to win more than 100 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination before the national convention, which is being held in July in Cleveland.
Cruz always had a steep climb to win 1,237 delegates before Cleveland, but he and his campaign publicly held out hope it could happen. In recent weeks, reality appeared to be setting in as he increasingly referred to a contested convention as more likely.
Cruz’s fate was sealed by Trump’s massive victory Tuesday in New York, where the billionaire won by more than 35 points and was on track to collect all but a few of its 95 delegates. Cruz, who placed third behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich, was at danger of not collecting a single delegate.
“Last night Donald Trump had a good night,” Cruz told Philadelphia radio host Chris Stigall, reiterating that Trump was widely expected to do well in New York. “He won his home state.”