Jeb Bush, Club for Growth endorse Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, welcomed an endorsement from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush today and insisted only he could defeat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election this fall.

Bush dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination last month after weak showings in early primaries. “Ted is a consistent, principled conservative who has shown he can unite the party,” Bush tweeted. He added on his Facebook page that Republicans “must overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity Donald Trump has brought into the political arena” or risk losing to Clinton.

Cruz also picked up the endorsement of the political arm of the Club for Growth, a conservative economics group that has spent millions in TV ads to stop Trump. Club for Growth president David McIntosh said there is a “vast gulf between the two leading Republican candidates on matters of economic liberty.” Cruz would shrink the federal government, McIntosh said, while Trump “would seek to remake government in his desired image.”

Cruz won a majority victory in Utah’s caucuses Tuesday, a much-needed win that gave him all the state’s 40 delegates. Trump, still the front-runner in the race, won the Arizona primary, picking up 58 more delegates. Arizona moved Trump closer to the GOP nomination and the magical 1,237—the number of delegates he needs to win the presidential nod outright, without a convention fight. It could be June before it’s clear whether Trump will make that number. Overall, Trump has accumulated 739 delegates, Cruz has 465, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich 143.

It’s hard to see how Cruz could get to 1,237. He has talked about winning California, but to have a good shot at that, he really needs Kasich to drop out of the race. Cruz has said in interviews he’s hopeful Kasich will bail out, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

“I think he’d be a tremendous addition to an administration,” Cruz said on CNN, praising the governor’s talents while suggesting Kasich should get out of his way.

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