Businessman and reality TV personality Donald Trump is closer than ever to the Republican nomination for president of the United States after his only real rival, Ted Cruz, pulled out of the race last night.
Cruz, a senator from Texas, was defeated soundly in yesterday’s Indiana primary. This means the only Republican still vying for the nomination alongside Trump is Ohio governor John Kasich – who has won only 153 of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.
Trump, on the other hand, is just short of that majority after last night’s win in Indiana, with 1,047 delegates. Before leaving the race, Cruz had rustled up a meagre 565 delegates.
On the Democratic side of things, Hillary Clinton remains the frontrunner – but she has been dogged at each turn by the indefatigable Bernie Sanders campaign. Sanders won the Democratic Indiana primary last night, his 18th primary win overall, but probably not by enough to steal the nomination away from Clinton.
Despite Sanders’ win last night, and the momentum behind his movement, Hillary Clinton now has 2,202 delegates. She needs just over 100 more of the remaining 1,163 to win the nomination – meaning that Sanders race is pretty much run.
Chairman of the Republic National Convention, Reince Priebus, embraced Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee last night and asked his fellow party members to unite under Trump’s banner – tweeting a message that included the hashtag ‘#NeverClinton’.
.@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton
— Reince Priebus (@Reince) May 4, 2016
It should also be noted that Priebus misspelled the word presumptive on the first go before deleting his tweet and trying again, nailing it on the second time of asking.
