Donald Trump is apparent GOP presidential nominee after his two remaining rivals ended their White House bids.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich will suspend his presidential campaign at a 5 p.m. press conference Wednesday in Ohio, campaign sources tell NPR. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the race Tuesday night after a disappointing loss in Indiana.
The rapid moves in the past 24 hours bring to a close a wild GOP primary season that leaves the one-time unlikely real estate mogul as the party's presumptive nominee.
Trump inherits a deeply fractured Republican Party and has many challenges in uniting his former rivals and opponents behind his controversial candidacy. #NeverTrump forces poured millions of dollars in ads in Indiana as a last-ditch effort to stop him, an aim that would be for naught.
Both Cruz and Kasich had already been mathematically eliminated from getting the 1,237 requisite delegates to stop Trump on the first ballot at a GOP convention. Instead, their only hope was denying Trump a majority of delegates as well and hoping that GOP delegates would switch allegiances to their camps in a multiple ballot scenario.
For the past month and a half, Cruz and Kasich remained in the race as alternatives to Trump even as their chances remained daunting. Kasich only won one state — his home of Ohio — back on March 15 and hadn't amassed many delegates since then. In fact, he ends fourth in the delegate race behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign nearly two months ago.
Kasich's campaign remained resolute though, believing that at a contested GOP convention in Cleveland this summer that party stalwarts would eventually turn toward the moderate governor of a crucial swing state. Even on Tuesday night as Cruz announced his exit, Kasich's team signaled that they would remain in the race. By Wednesday morning though, they seemed to have finally accepted the harsh reality.
