Cruz and Kasich (and the G.O.P.) Give Up on the Northeast

You can hardly imagine John Kasich and Ted Cruz enduring a meal with each other—the earnest son of a postman in one seat, the snobby former Princeton debater in the other—let alone engaging in a high-stakes strategy session. So when their campaigns made a deal, over the weekend (that Kasich would not actively contest the crucial Indiana primary, so that the anti-Trump vote there could coalesce around Cruz, and that Cruz would return the favor in the less pivotal Oregon and New Mexico primaries), it made sense that the pact was brokered by their campaign managers, and that the two candidates did not themselves speak. Donald Trump pronounced the deal “desperate,” and it certainly seemed like it. But there was also irony in the deal’s timing and terms. On Tuesday, two days after the campaigns’ announcement, primaries will be held in five Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states—none of which are covered by the Cruz-Kasich agreement, and all of which are likely to be big Trump wins. The pact ignored territory (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) where Trump will rack up delegates. In this way, the deal between the two anti-Trump campaigns reflected a persistent Republican Party blind spot: voters living between Boston and Washington.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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