Trump taking ‘banana republic’ approach

WASHINGTON: A senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Sunday accused rival Donald Trump’s campaign of taking a “banana republic approach” by complaining that party rules for selecting a nominee are rigged against him.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Texas senator’s delegate operations manager, said on ABC’s “This Week” that the Trump campaign is challenging the delegate selection process “because they’re getting beat on the ground.”
Cuccinelli and Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as well as the third Republican candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, traded punches over the delegate selection process on Sunday news shows.
Trump remains the front-runner in the race to be the Republican Party’s candidate in November’s general election. But it remains unclear whether the billionaire businessman will arrive at the party’s July 18-21 convention in Cleveland with the 1,237-delegate majority needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.
The next big face-off is New York state’s primary on Tuesday, with 95 delegates at stake.
Opinion polls show Trump, a New Yorker, well ahead of his rivals, with Kasich and Cruz trailing behind. The latest CBS News poll, released on Sunday, show Trump supported by 49 percent of those surveyed, followed by 31 percent for Cruz and 16 percent for Kasich. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, a former New York senator and US secretary of state, and US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will also face New York voters on Tuesday.