| Cruz and Kasich make a deal and Hillary begins her victory lap, Washington bureau chief Zoe Daniel writes | It's been another week bordering on the bizarre on the campaign trail.
Appearing increasingly desperate, Republican rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich joined forces in a kind of "let's nobble the Donald" alliance whereby they'll take turns sitting out of various primaries to avoid splitting the anti Trump vote.
Senator Cruz also announced a vice presidential running mate, even though he's about 3.5 million votes and 400 delegates behind Mr Trump and cannot win unless there's a contested convention.
More on that later, but for a little context it followed Donald Trump's clean sweep of five eastern primaries on Tuesday night.
It was no surprise in that recent polls had indicated that the frontrunner would do well and indeed he did, taking all 109 available delegates.
His path to the nomination is now looking more than possible.
He needs 283 delegates to get to the magic number of 1,237 to take the nomination and to avoid that messy contested convention business.
There are 502 delegates still up for grabs so hold onto your hats people - it's going to go down to the wire. June 7 is the date to remember.
The fabled California primary will offer more than pina coladas at the beach bar this year. Its 172-delegate primary is going to be a scrap like none before it.
Oh, and remember the Democrats? Hillary Clinton has been conducting what looks suspiciously like a victory lap.
Don't get the wrong idea, Bernie Sanders is still hanging in there but the path is ever narrowing and getting close to being a dead end.
She now has 88 per cent of the delegates she needs for the nomination (that's including those pesky super delegates).
VICTORS
Donald Trump. Again.
See above. Mr Trump insulted a large swathe of the population again this week with his comments about women (more on that shortly) but maybe the most shocking thing he did was speak from a teleprompter in a foreign policy address.
That's something he's done only once before during the campaign. It's all part of Mr Trump's (somewhat stilted) attempt at being more "presidential".
Hillary Clinton. Again.
The former secretary of state now has 2,165 of 2,383 needed for the nomination. As this NPR piece confidently states "barring something unforseen Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee".
VANQUISHED
Ted Cruz. Took zip delegates on Tuesday and has now initiated a risky strategy with Mr Kasich to prevent Mr Trump getting to 1,237.
Mr Kasich will sit out Tuesday's winner take all primary in Indiana (57 delegates).
Although he's not actually directing his supporters to vote for Senator Cruz (which is a little confusing), I guess we can assume that the strategy is that some of his voters will gravitate that way drawing support away from the frontrunner.
If it works Mr Trump will be denied a big bloc of delegates.
Here's how the polls currently look so it could be tight.
Bernie Sanders. He's still around but it's a struggle for the Bern.
Mrs Clinton won four states on Tuesday night and while he says he'll stay in all the way until the Democratic convention he's started putting off field staff around the traps, which probably says something about a) his prospects and b) his budget, given that much of his campaign is funded via individual donations of $27.
While the "political revolution" is looking a little Berned out, Senator Sanders's team has shifted focus West to the California primary.
Senator Sanders has started to make his list of demands clear as the Democratic Party tries to bring him into line behind Mrs Clinton who has the Democratic nomination within tantalising reach.
HILLARY, CARLY AND THE 5 PER CENT
As mentioned earlier, Senator Cruz has chosen former presidential hopeful and ex-Hewlett Packard boss Carly Fiorina as his VP running mate.
This followed renewed debate about the role of women, both as candidates and voters in the current campaign.
First, Donald Trump had a spray at Mrs Clinton saying she wouldn't even have 5 per cent of the vote if she was a man.
She bit back. Then, her team released an actual "Woman's Card" and then also a virtual credit card, that links to her official campaign website and her stance on women.
The very next afternoon Senator Cruz made the bells and whistles announcement about Ms Fiorina.
In general it's been received pretty cynically by the pundit class as this TIME article sets out bluntly.
We'll have to wait and see whether it plays better with voters.
It's worth noting that Ms Fiorina ran a failed Senate campaign in 2010 and flamed out of the presidential race with only one delegate earlier in the year.
She also has very similar, hardline conservative views to Senator Cruz so it's unlikely she'll broaden his base of voters either.
SLAM DUNK IN INDIANA
This week everything is about Indiana and if you need to know one thing about the Hoosiers state it's that it's the home of basketball - and don't these candidates know it.
Mr Trump has enlisted the help of legendary Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight to help his cause as the tussle for the state's 57 winner-takes-all delegates enters the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Senator Cruz butchered a famous scene from the Hoosiers movie (which tells the tale of Milan High School's 1954 State Championship run) as he tried to channel some underdog inspiration - you can watch it here.
Senator Cruz was widely criticised for the cheesy gag but most of all he was lambasted for calling it a basketball "ring" not a "hoop". You need to be on your game if you're going to invoke the lingo.
THE CHRISTIES
The Christies can't catch a break.
Nearly two months after his stone-faced expressions beside Mr Trump at a press conference went viral, the Christies have once again been caught in the spotlight.
This time it was Chris Christie's wife, Mary Pat, who was caught giving Mr Trump the side eye as he made remarks about Mrs Clinton playing the woman card.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Senator Cruz is famously disliked by his colleagues.
A couple of months ago, Lindsey Graham hypothesised a scenario where he died on the Senate floor and no one was convicted.
Well, former speaker John Boehner has just as much affection for the Texan Senator, telling students at Stanford that he was "Lucifer in the flesh" - amongst other unsavoury things.
What is it about, Ted? This New York Times piece has listed the most, uh, creative descriptions colleagues have for Senator Cruz and they're certainly colourful.
BY THE NUMBERS
10 million - that's the number of votes Trump has surpassed through the course of this primary season.
That's a quarter of a million more than Mitt Romney secured in 2012 and about 150,000 more than John McCain in 2008.
The GOP has railed against Mr Trump for months but he's certainly bringing in the votes. The question is can he do it in a double header, by that I mean the actual race for the White House later this year.
SINGING OUT FOR HELP
This campaign has felt a little bit like a reality TV show at times, which makes sense given the Republican frontrunner is a reality TV star.
But on Wednesday, Ms Fiorina made things look a little bit more like a homespun American Idol as she belted out a couple of lines from a song she likes to sing to Senator Cruz's little daughters.
Senator Cruz has tried to hold a tune on the trail as well, while Mr Kasich has also busted out a few lines from Bowie in the past.
Thankfully, holding a tune isn't a criterion for presidential hopefuls.
Cringe.
Oh and speaking of which, check out this rather compelling video of former hopeful turned Mr Trump sidekick Mr Christie busting a move at a Bruce Springsteen concert this week.
Who's the boss? I think we know the answer to that.
WHERE TO FROM HERE
Indiana's up on Tuesday - although Mr Kasich won't be there because of the weird alliance that isn't.
So, I guess it's Indiana for four of the five remaining candidates. Hang in there, we've almost got our nominees, folks! |  | | | About this email You received this email because you are subscribed to ABC News email alerts. This message was sent to you at starnewsposting@gmail.com. Please add newslists@your.abc.net.au to your email address book to see images by default and stop the email being treated as spam. This email address is not monitored - Please don't reply to this email. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. Add or remove topics | Unsubscribe | Contact Us |
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