The death of former first lady Nancy Reagan Sunday cast a pall over a bitter fight for the Republican presidential nomination that increasingly looks like a two-man race.
The wife of the 40th president died Sunday of congestive heart failure, a spokeswoman from Reagan’s office announced.
Reagan remembrances are unlikely to force more than brief pause in the food fight the Republican nomination has become, but Nancy Reagan’s death highlights the contrast between the dignity of the former President Ronald Reagan and his wife and current state of GOP presidential race.
Two days after Republican front-runner Donald Trump became the first presidential candidate to defend the size of his penis during a nationally televised debate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, trounced Trump in Kansas and scored an upset win in Maine, positioning himself as arguably the GOP’s only alternative to Trump.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., won Puerto Rico’s primary Sunday, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich insists he can compete in Midwestern states, including his own, that still set to hold primaries, but neither man has any chance outside of a convention contest to capture the nomination.
Cruz’s wins left him as the only candidate in striking distance of Trump in terms of delegates. The Texas senator has urged Rubio and Kasich to quit the race, saying he can beat Trump in a one-on-one race.
Faced with a pick-your-poison choice between Trump and Cruz, who is loathed by Senate GOP colleagues for grandstanding at their expense, mainstream Republicans this weekend signaled their reluctant choice of Cruz.
“I’d rather risk losing without Donald Trump than try to win with him, because it will do more damage over time,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Cruz is at least a conservative, Graham said. He said Republicans would have “some hope with Ted, no hope with The Donald.”
“If Donald Trump’s the nominee, the Republican party will get killed, will get creamed,” Graham said. “We’ll lose; we’ll deserve it.”
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, kept up his scorched-earth attack on Trump in appearances on three Sunday television shows, though the former Mass. Gov. avoided saying he erred by accepting Trump’s endorsement in 2012. Romney said he could support Cruz.
But Cruz faces a challenge with the remaining primary map. Most of the states that favor him have already voted. Even Cruz has long odds of denying Trump the majority of Republican delegates he needs to avoid a convention fight.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus seemed to acknowledge that reality Sunday. Priebus said the party will not try to deny a candidate with the majority of delegates the nomination.
Trump narrowly won in Louisiana and Kentucky Saturday, but had a difficult weekend. He watched his delegate lead narrow and his rally Saturday in Florida flounder amid constant interruptions by protesters.
Worried that his vocal supporters will not turn out to vote, Trump asked the more than 20,000 on hand to raise their right arms and pledge to support him. The resulting images drew widespread comparisons to pictures of German’s offering “Nazi salutes” to Adolph Hitler.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton promised at a debate Sunday night that she is ready to take on Trump, who she called a “bigot.”
Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a debate in Flint, Michigan, offered a contrast with Thursday’s raucous GOP debate. The Democrats debated trade policy and healthcare while discussing racism and the role of religion in their lives.
Clinton clobbered Sanders Saturday in Louisiana and remains on an easy path to the Democratic nomination. But an ongoing drip of news on Clinton’s use of a private email address and server while she was secretary of state, along Sanders wins this weekend in Kansas, Nebraska on Saturday, and in Maine Sunday, highlighted her continued electoral vulnerability.
But Republicans remain far from rallying behind a candidate positioned to exploit Clinton’s shortcomings.
