Gingrich: Trump is presumptive nominee
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Donald Trump’s blowout victory in Tuesday’s New York primary makes him the presumptive Republican presidential nominee that the party should unite behind.
“Every analysis of the next few weeks indicates Trump’s margin will widen and he will move steadily closer to 1237,” Gingrich wrote in a Washington Times op-ed Wednesday.
{mosads}“These are the numbers of a presumptive nominee, not a front runner. If this were any candidate but Donald Trump, the media would be saying his rivals’ efforts were hopeless and the establishment would be pressuring them to exit the race.”
In the op-ed, Gingrich rebuked the idea that Trump won New York so decisively because of his residency, saying presidential rival Ted Cruz didn’t perform nearly as well in Texas.
“In Cruz’s home state, Trump got nearly one third of the delegates in a four-person race,” Gingrich wrote. Cruz grabbed 104 delegates in Texas’s primary, while Trump got 48.
He also predicted success for Trump in the upcoming primaries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland and California.
“It is likely that [John] Kasich will come in second and Cruz will come in third in all of those states,” he wrote.
Gingrich asserted Trump would win the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention this summer in Cleveland.
“It is time for the GOP establishment to work with this new reality rather than wage war against it,” he said.
Gingrich, who hasn’t made a formal endorsement in the race, has praised and defended Trump during the campaign and attended a meeting with the front-runner and other Republicans in Washington last month.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed..
