AWFULLY late in the day, the Republicans are trying to unpick one of the collective action problems that are threatening to gift their nomination to Donald Trump. Thus, on April 24th, the non-aggression pact announced by Ted Cruz and John Kasich, his two surviving opponents, to cover three upcoming primaries.
Under its terms, Mr Kasich will cease campaigning in Indiana, where Mr Cruz has a decent chance of winning many of the 57 delegates on offer. The senator from Texas will do Mr Kasich the same service in New Mexico and Oregon, which have 52 delegates up for grabs between them and enough moderate voters to give the governor of Ohio a hope of adding to his puny total of 148 delegates—which is 696 fewer than Mr Trump has.
The arrangement is borne of two different sorts of exigency. Mr Kasich is running out of cash; recent accounts suggested he had less than a million dollars to spend. More important, the pact starts with a straightforward recognition that, because neither challenger can win the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, the best they can hope for is to block Mr Trump, and hope to...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1VOAjS6
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