Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday seemed confident that he would win the Republican nomination if the presidential primary leads to a contested convention.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Cruz laid out two paths to securing the nomination — securing 1,237 delegates outright or heading to a contested convention to compete against Donald Trump if neither candidate meets the delegate threshold.
“If no one has gotten 1,237 by then, delegates elected by the people will vote, and we will win that vote,” Cruz said, referring to a vote at the convention. “One way or the other, I believe we are going to win the nomination.”
He argued that Ohio Gov. John Kasich would not be eligible to be the nominee under convention rules unless he wins a majority of delegates in eight states, leaving the nomination to a vote between himself and Trump at the convention.
Cruz said that he would be nominated because the GOP knows Trump could not win the general election.
“One way or the other, I believe we are going to win the nomination,” he said. “And the reason is, 65 to 70 percent of Republicans recognize that Donald Trump would be a disaster.”
The Texas senator cited a recent poll that found both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) beating Trump in the general election in Utah.
“Now Utah is bright, bright red, about as conservative as you can get. If a Republican cannot carry the state of Utah, as Donald Trump can’t, that means you are looking at a Mondale-level bloodbath of a defeat across this country,” he said. “Nominating Donald Trump would not only elect Hillary Clinton but it would lose the Senate, it might well lose the House of Representatives. It would lose races up and down the ballot.”
Cruz also dismissed the possibility that a candidate who did not run for president could secure the nomination at the convention.
“Now, there are some folks in Washington that are having fevered dreams of a brokered convention, of the convention deadlocked, and then they march in with a white horse and have this Washington dealmaker, who didn’t run, who wasn’t elected by the people but who saves the Washington establishment,” he said. “That ain’t going to happen. If they tried that, you would see the voters revolt quite rightly after having all 50 states vote.”
