Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said a third-place finish for Sen. Ted Cruz in the New York Republican primary Tuesday would be a “game changer” for the conservative candidate who has the second most delegates.
“If Cruz comes in a very distant third … I think that is really a game changer in a big way,” Gingrich told Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs late Tuesday.
The Republican leader made the claim less than an hour before Fox News projected Gov. John Kasich took second place in the Empire State with Donald Trump winning.
While Cruz has trailed Trump and Kasich in recent polls, his actual percentage of the vote will not be known until late Tuesday night when all of the ballots have been counted.
Depending on how far Cruz finishes behind Kasich, who has only won a primary in his home state of Ohio, Gingrich said it could knock the Texas senator off his recent winning streak and hurt morale.
“It’s pretty hard for Cruz if he’s in third place to argue that he’s the main alternative,” Gingrich said.
A strong win of more than 60 percent of the vote would give the Manhattan real estate tycoon the state’s 95 delegates, creating an outcome Gingrich said would be “very hard to imagine that he’s not the presumptive nominee at that point.”
