A third-party Republican candidate entering the presidential race would "just elect Hillary" in November, political strategist Dick Morris told
Newsmax TV on Thursday.
"The talk of the third party is nonsense," he told "Newsmax Now" host John Bachman.
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The tougher test is for Ted Cruz, whom Morris said cannot win the nomination without delegates from John Kasich and former rival Marco Rubio.
Rubio, the first-term Florida senator, quit the race Tuesday after an embarrassing loss in his state's primary. He took with him 169 delegates, while Cruz has 411, Kasich holds 143 — and
front-runner Donald Trump has 673.
To win the GOP nomination, a candidate must have 1,237 delegates. The Republican National Convention will be held in Cleveland in July.
"He would have to win 88 percent of the remaining delegates in order to a get a first-ballot nomination," Morris said of Cruz. "Unless he can borrow 143 from Rubio and 160-something from Kasich — and unless he can get Kasich out of the field so it's a one-on-one race against Trump.
"The most to be made here is Cruz for president and Kasich for vice president. Cruz has to make that offer, because there's no other way to win."
However, a Cruz-Kasich ticket "would cause a lot of angst among Cruz supporters," Morris argued.
"That might impel some of them to defect to Trump, the Cruz-Trump vote has always been very similar.
"But he has no other choice," Morris told Bachman of the Texas senator, who was endorsed Thursday by former rival Lindsey Graham. "There is no way that he can win this nomination without John Kasich's support."
In the meantime, Kasich is "delusional" in thinking he can win the nomination solely because the Ohio governor won his state's primary on Tuesday, the strategist said.
"When he gets clobbered in Arizona on Tuesday and in Wisconsin two weeks from Tuesday, he's going to learn that's fanciful — that he can't and that he and Cruz will split the vote just like they did in Michigan and Illinois and give Donald Trump the delegates," Morris said.
"Until John Kasich gets that realization, Trump is going to be the nominee," he added. "But as reality dawns on John Kasich, he might be able to make Cruz the nominee."
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