SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Ohio governor John Kasich Wednesday suspended his campaign for the White House, according to an advisor, becoming the last Republican candidate to depart, leaving Donald Trump on a straight path to the party’s nomination.
Just last week at the California state GOP convention, Kasich had pledged to continue his campaign as a Trump alternative. He positioned himself as the candidate capable of defeating Democratic frontrunner Hilary Clinton in November’s general election.
However, on Wednesday he cancelled a news conference in Washington, instead planning an announcement to be delivered from his home state to make clear his intentions to withdraw from the race.
Kasich’ departure comes just one day after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that he too would be withdrawing from the race for the White House.
Before Tuesday, Trump had a 2-1 advantage over Cruz, his closest opponent, in number of total delegates. Kasich had only about a tenth of Trump’s total. Both were mathematically out of contention in the race for the necessary 1,237 delegates required to secure the party’s nomination.
Now that Trump has the political sandbox all to himself, he’s making a few changes. Since his campaign began, Trump has touted himself as the only candidate in the party not aligned with any donor or special interest. On several occasions, the billionaire real estate mogul has reminded voters he’s self-funded his entire campaign.
Wednesday, Trump said he won’t be self-funding his general-election campaign, and will instead create “world-class finance organization.”
For a campaign anticipated to cost well north of $1 billion, “I’ll be putting up money, but won’t be completely self-funding, as I did during the primaries,” Trump said. In total, Trump lent $36 million of his own money to the $47 million that has been spent through March.
