LF: Furious Trump accuses Cruz of 'illegal' activity and Republicans of trying to 'steal' the nomination after Texas senator humiliates Republican frontunner in Wisconsin

Title: Furious Trump accuses Cruz of 'illegal' activity and Republicans of trying to 'steal' the nomination after Texas senator humiliates Republican frontunner in Wisconsin
Source: Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... exit-poll-numbers-roll-in.html
Published: Apr 6, 2016
Author: David Martosko, Us Political Editor For
Post Date: 2016-04-06 09:52:50 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 1497
Comments: 6

Ted Cruz scored a critical win for his campaign on Tuesday as he prevailed in Wisconsin - but opponent Donald Trump says he didn't come by the victory honestly.

Trump lashed out at Cruz via spokeswoman Hope Hicks overnight and accused the Texas senator of breaking the law.

Hicks said the Republican frontrunner 'withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again' even as 'Lyin' Ted' and his buddies in the conservative media and the 'party apparatus' worked to unseat him.

'Not only was he propelled by the Anti-Trump Super PAC's spending countless millions of dollars on false advertising against Mr. Trump, but he was also coordinating with his own Super PAC's (which is illegal) who totally control him,' she said in a statement distributed to the press.

Cruz is 'worse than a puppet,' the Trump aide wrote. 'He is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump.'

The campaign said it has 'total confidence' that Trump will go on to win New York on April 19 and the nomination.

Cruz's win Tuesday evening put new pressure on Trump. It was an election the U.S. senator had to win in order to stay in the presidential hunt.

He framed the win as 'a turning point' in the GOP race and 'a victory for every American,' projecting strength despite the lack of a path to the nomination outside of a contested convention.

'Together we will win a majority of the delegates, and together we will beat Hillary Clinton in November,' he said, allowing that capturing the nomination is something more likely to happen during the July Republican National Convention than beforehand.

With 99.9 per cent of the voting precincts in the Badger State reporting their totals, the Texas senator had 48.3 per cent of the votes, with the billionaire front-runner at 35 per cent.

Cruz took the stage at the american Serb Banquet Hall to the strains of 'Where The Stars And Stripes And Eagle Fly' by country artist Aaron Tippin.

'I was born by God's dear grace in an extraordinary place where the stars and stripes and the eagle fly,' the song begins.

It was an odd choice for a presidential hopeful who was born in Canada and held dual citizenship until less than two years ago.

Trump has made hay over Cruz's place of birth, suggesting he should resolve the legal question of his eligibility to hold the Oval Office well in advance of the general election.

The brash billionaire issued a fighting-words statement saying that he had 'withstood the onslaught of the establishment' in Wisconsin that wants to poach the GOP nomination from him and hand it to one of their own.

DRINKING IT IN: Cruz celebrates flanked by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on the left and his wife Heidi on the right

SMILES: Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz celebrates with his wife Heidi in Milwaukee

'Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet – he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump,' his campaign said in the statement.

'We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond.

'Mr. 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, in order to Make America Great Again.'

NBC News, CNN and the Fox News Channel declared a half-hour after polls closed Tuesday night that Trump couldn't possibly catch up to Cruz.

Wisconsin will award 42 convention delegates – 18 to the overall winner and three more to the victor in each of the state's eight congressional districts.

It was possible for Cruz to sweep the entire contest with even the narrowest of wins in all eight regions of the state, but Trump carried one district and a second was still too close to call on Wednesday morning.

Sounding more like a general election candidate than a primary warrior, Cruz laid into Clinton and postured himself as her eventual opponent in the fall.

'Tonight was a bad night for Hillary Clinton,' he said. 'It was a bad night in the Democratic primary, and it was an even worse night for her in the Republican primary.'

'Hillary, get ready! Here we come!'

SEE YOU IN NEW YORK: Trump, who leads in the overall nationwide contest, will have to nurse his wounds for two weeks until the Empire State's primary on April 19

SO GRACIOUS: Trump's campaign said in a post-election statement that 'Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet – he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination'

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (left) endorsed Cruz and guided him through his home state to victory

DISTANT THIRD: John Kasich had a poor night, winning only 14 per cent of the vote in Ohio and will face increasing calls to drop out of the race

p class="mol-para-with-font">Cruz hosted an election night party in Milwaukee, the state's largest city. Trump left Wisconsin in the afternoon.

The Texan's supporters filed into the Serb American Hall in small numbers, cheering when a TV tuned to CNN announced that he had won.

Gov. Scott Walker appeared on stage to praise Cruz as a 'common sense conservative' and to thank his constituents for sending Trump packing.

''Wisconsin nice' means we're nice but we're not pushovers,' he said.

LOOK OUT, HILLARY: Cruz insisted he'll be the Republican presidential nominee and warned the Democratic front-runner that he'll be gunning for her next

'Trump, the overall national front-runner, had predicted a 'surprise' finish during a campaign stop Tuesday morning near Milwaukee.

He said Monday night that he thought Wisconsinites would hand him 'a very, very big victory.'

Wisconsin could have been the cherry on the Trump sundae, an acknowledgement that the real estate tycoon's unlikely White House run had gathered too much steam to be stopped or even slowed.

Instead, Cruz will likely own GOP bragging rights in the two weeks leading up to the April 19 New York primary, a contest Trump is expected to win in a landslide.

The same outcome is projected for a string of northeastern and mid-Atlantic states a week later.

Trump is the only GOP candidate who currently has a reasonable chance of collecting the 1,237 Republican National Convention delegates required to cinch the White House nomination.

But every delegate Cruz's forces scoop up is a new headache for The Donald, whose fortunes could come down to a razor-thin margin when the party meets in July in Cleveland, Ohio.

Hope Hicks is probably correct but it is difficult to prove and probably every candidate with a Super PAC does it.