He blames cable news for interceding on Trump’s behalf during a critical stretch of the campaign. “If you go back to March and April, we were winning this race,” Cruz says. “We had five consecutive elections over the course of three weeks that we won by double digits. Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Wyoming. Those are diverse states, they’re markedly different states, and every single one of them was a double-digit victory. And 1.3 million people voted in those five states. . . . After Marco [Rubio] dropped out, 80 percent of Marco’s supporters came to us, and the party was uniting behind our campaign. That’s why we were winning one after the other after the other after the other.”
But then, he argues, the media squashed his momentum. “In an ordinary world, when you have five consecutive victories by double digits, the press coverage is ‘another big victory, momentum is growing, the wheels are coming off the other campaign,’ ” he says. “None of that got covered on any network. And instead . . . starting a week out from New York, the 24/7 press narrative was, ‘Trump is unbeatable, he’s unstoppable, it’s mathematically impossible for him to lose, we cannot win.’ And within 36 hours our numbers dropped 20 points. And they dropped everywhere.”
“There was no precipitating event,” he adds. “[It’s] not like I stuck my foot in my mouth or said something foolish. Their campaign had not said something profound. What happened is the voters gave up. They were told 24/7, ‘It’s hopeless, you cannot win,’ and they gave up.”
Two weeks later, during his last stand in Indiana, Cruz says the campaign’s internal polling showed “92 percent of our voters who came and voted for us believed Trump would be the nominee” regardless of whom they voted for. “You cannot win if your voters are all told it is hopeless,” Cruz says.
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