Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced Tuesday that he was ending his presidential campaign, bowing to the reality that his crushing loss in Indiana all but assured the nomination of Donald J. Trump.

“From the beginning, I have said that I will continue on as long as there is a viable path to victory,” he told supporters here. “Tonight, I am sorry to say, it appears that path has been closed.”
Mr. Cruz, who staked his bid in the Republican race on a message of conservative purity and religious faith, had suffered through weeks of setbacks as the primary calendar reached the Northeast, where Mr. Trump significantly expanded his lead.
But the senator had hoped to find more favorable terrain in Indiana, dashing across the state for over a week in a last-ditch effort to unify Republicans who viewed Mr. Trump’s success as an existential threat to the party.
Since entering the race over a year ago, Mr. Cruz had far exceeded most expectations, energizing hard-line conservatives and casting his toxic relationships with Senate colleagues as an asset as he railed against “the Washington cartel.”
The rest of the calendar was less kind. Early on, the Cruz campaign bet big on the South, hoping a sweep through the Super Tuesday primaries on March 1 would boost his delegate count. Though Mr. Cruz carried his home state of Texas, as well as Oklahoma, Mr. Trump’s victories elsewhere forced an instant scramble from the Cruz campaign to rejigger its playbook.
A triumph in Wisconsin last month, along with several wins in state delegate elections, briefly supplied hope that Mr. Cruz might yet best Mr. Trump in a floor fight at the Republican convention. But the tide turned quickly, beginning with Mr. Trump’s home state of New York.
All the while, Mr. Cruz wavered on a pledge to support any eventual Republican nominee.
In a final appearance on Tuesday morning, Mr. Cruz pleaded with voters to join him, calling Mr. Trump a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral.”
If Indiana voted for his rival, Mr. Cruz said, “this country could well plunge into the abyss.”
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President

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