Trump vacuums up endorsements as ranks close behind frontrunner

Ted Cruz is the latest ex-rival to back the former president after dominant Iowa win.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz confer during a break in presidential primary debate in Miami in March 2016. Picture: AFP

More Republicans are closing ranks behind Donald Trump’s campaign in the aftermath of his dominant victory in Iowa, a sign of widespread belief that he will clinch the GOP presidential nomination.

The latest to join is former 2016 rival Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who announced his endorsement on Tuesday evening. He joined another leading opponent to Mr Trump in the 2016 primary, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week said the former president was the party’s best hope for rolling back the policies of Democratic President Joe Biden.

The Iowa result also yielded Trump an endorsement from Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the 2024 contest after failing to gain traction in the first voting state. Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, an earlier campaign dropout, has also given Mr Trump his support.

Few leading Republicans have lately endorsed the two remaining main rivals to Mr Trump, Nikki Haley and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. Indeed, Senator Rubio snubbed his home state governor, Mr DeSantis, in favour of Mr Trump.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Trump critic who left the race earlier this month, has declined to endorse anyone despite hopes from Haley allies that he would back her.

The endorsements are the latest sign that Republicans have coalesced behind the former president, even with more than 50 states and territories yet to vote in the nominating contest and Mr Trump’s rivals continuing to campaign and run TV ads in hopes of an upset victory. Trump won a commanding 51 per cent in Iowa and fell a single vote short of winning all of the state’s 99 counties.

The wave of endorsements leaves a handful of top GOP leaders as outliers for so far holding back from supporting Trump. Chief among them: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s Senate leader, and the No. 2 leader, John Thune of South Dakota. The No. 3 Senate GOP leader, Wyoming’s John Barrasso, has endorsed Mr Trump, as have top House Republican leaders.

The Iowa results signalled that even some of the most influential Republicans don’t have the power to persuade Republican voters to turn the page from Mr Trump and move on to new leadership. Iowa’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds, had endorsed Mr DeSantis in the caucuses, as had Bob Vander Plaats, considered the state’s most influential evangelical Christian leader.

In New Hampshire, Ms Haley has the support of Governor Chris Sununu, who is widely popular in the state and has won four two-year terms, most recently by 15 percentage points. But Mr Sununu holds to a form of conservatism that is out of step with many in the party, a low-tax, pro-business philosophy that also argues that the party is wrong to pursue culture-war issues that he says alienate centrist voters.

Mr Sununu argues that voters this year will reject the “nonsense and drama” that surrounds Mr Trump, who lost New Hampshire by a larger margin in 2020 than in 2016, and that Ms Haley represents the new generation of leaders the party needs. Former senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who also served as the state’s governor, has backed Ms Haley, as well.

Senator Cruz had won the Iowa caucuses in 2016 and went on to amass the second-most convention delegates that year. At the party’s 2016 national convention, he markedly refused to endorse Mr Trump, prompting boos from the crowd. When Senator Cruz finally endorsed his rival months later, it was a sign that the party’s establishment wing had given way to Mr Trump’s new form of populism.

On Tuesday evening, Senator Cruz said the Iowa caucuses had essentially ended the race. “At this point, I believe this race is over, so I am proud to endorse Donald Trump,” he said on Fox News.

He predicted that while New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 primary could be competitive, Mr Trump would dominate the primary contests after that, including in Ms Haley’s home state of South Carolina. “I don’t see any path to victory for anyone other than Donald Trump,” he said.

South Carolina’s February 24 primary could be decisive, in a state that Haley has won twice as governor but where she currently trails Mr Trump in public opinion polls. The state’s GOP governor, Henry McMaster, endorsed Mr Trump more than a year ago, and its senior senator, Lindsey Graham, backs Mr Trump, as well.

Senator Tim Scott, the state’s other GOP senator, hasn’t yet endorsed a candidate after suspending his own campaign for the nomination in November. Senator Scott has spoken directly to Mr Trump, Ms Haley and Mr DeSantis, who have all asked him for an endorsement, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

A defeat in South Carolina would make it far more difficult for Ms Haley or any other candidate to compete meaningfully on Super Tuesday, March 5, when 15 states vote. They include California, Texas and other large states in which it is expensive to run campaigns. The voting that day will apportion the largest bloc of delegates to the party’s national convention — the currency that matters in securing the nomination.

In addition to Reynolds, the Iowa governor, DeSantis has the endorsement of Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. As well as winning Sununu’s endorsement, Haley won the endorsement of several former governors, including centrist former Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland.

By contrast, at least nine of the 27 sitting Republican governors have backed Trump. Trump also has by far the largest set of endorsements by U.S. senators and House members.

As the focus turned to New Hampshire in the primary race, CNN said on Wednesday that it was cancelling a debate it had planned to hold in the state before the primary, following a cancellation by ABC on Tuesday of its planned debate. ABC said Haley hadn’t accepted the debate invitation, nor has Trump, who had also declined to participate in all prior primary-election debates this cycle.

Eliza Collins contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal