Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay believes Ohio Gov. John Kasich will make a deal with Ted Cruz to bow out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination so that the Texas senator has a better chance of winning.
"You have all those delegates that have been given up by [Marco] Rubio and [Ben] Carson and others," DeLay said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"There's at least 200 or 300 of those delegates that can vote any way they want to after the first vote. There's a lot of room in there to negotiate back and forth.
"What will happen is Cruz will cut a deal with Kasich because Kasich doesn't want Trump either. By the way, 60 percent of the voters don't want Trump either."
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DeLay, a Texas Republican, said despite Trump's continuing dominance in the primaries and caucuses, he's not a shoo-in.
"When Donald Trump wins a state everybody throws up their hands and say 'it's over, it's over, it's over,'" DeLay told Malzberg.
"It's a long way from over. I did the calculations this morning. Trump is the only one that can get the majority of the delegates, but he has to win at least 600 out of 900 that are remaining. That's over 65 percent he has to win.
"In other words, he has to run the table. All Cruz has to do is win 37 percent of the 900 remaining and he keeps Trump from getting a majority going into the convention. What I'm saying is none of them can get a majority of the delegates. We're going to a convention."
DeLay, a Washington Times radio host, said he believes Democrats and independents are "trying to take over" the Republican Party by pushing Trump’s nomination.
"And if Trump gets the nomination you're going to have even more people sitting home and it goes to Hillary [Clinton]," DeLay said.