Seeking to shore up support from conservative voters ahead of the Republican Party convention in Cleveland as he runs against Donald Trump and John Kasich, pro-life GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz will announce this afternoon that he will name pro-life former candidate Carly Fiorina as his vice-presidential running mate. After suspending her presidential bid, Fiorina endorsed Cruz over Trump.
Fiorina endorsed Cruz in March, after her own campaign for president ended. She has made appearances on the behalf of the Texas senator and introduced him at a recent campaign stop in Maryland.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is expected to announce former business executive Carly Fiorina will be his vice presidential running mate if he wins the party’s nomination, ABC News affiliate WMUR reported, citing unnamed sources.
Cruz earlier on Wednesday said he would make a major announcement at 4 p.m. on Wednesday but gave no other details. Fiorina endorsed Cruz for the nomination in March, one month after dropping out of the presidential race herself.
The conservative web site The Resurgent has been in Cruz’s amp for some time and conservative writer Erick Erickson wrote about the impact of selecting Fiorina:
Ted Cruz needs to change the narrative from last night. The media spin has been predictable. In Iowa, it was all about Marco Rubio winning by coming in third. In New Hampshire it was all about Rubio needing to rebound in South Carolina. In South Carolina it was all about the end of Ted Cruz. In Florida it was all about the unstoppable Donald Trump.
Throughout Campaign 2016, the media has done its best to ignore Ted Cruz. Now, in Indiana, he really is in a must win situation and he has to get the media talking about something other than last night’s Trump sweep. It appears his strategy is to announce a Presidential ticket. Rumor has it that at 4pm today, Cruz will announce Carly Fiorina would be his running mate in 2016.
It will get the media buzzing, though already some are saying it looks desperate. These are, to be sure, desperate times, but it also begins to set up the stage for Cleveland. There will be a huge fight over the vice presidential nominee if Trump does not get to 1,237. Delegates are not bound to any veep choice and they’re going to spend a chunk of time on that veep choice.
Cruz is setting the stage to neutralize that fight on the theory he can still stop Trump from getting to 1,237. Showing Republican voters their ticket now and acting like the nominee might do some psychological good for Cruz. It also forces the media to start talking about his candidacy in a new way.
On top of that, picking Fiorina as a running mate now again highlights just how badly Trump performs with women nationwide. Cruz is giving Republicans every conceivable reason now to come on board with his campaign and stop what everyone knows would be an electoral disaster in November with Trump as the nominee.
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The idea of Cruz announcing a running mate has been around for awhile and its a potential idea that could bolster Cruz with Republican voters wanting to coalesce around a candidate in anticipation for a brutal battle against pro-abortion Hillary Clinton. Earlier this week, Cruz and Kasich announced they are teaming up to gain as many delegates as possible in order to prevent Trump from getting a majority.
In the past few months, Fiorina has slammed the abortion giant Planned Parenthood for the “butchery of babies for body parts” and called on its CEO Cecile Richards to resign. She also dared pro-abortion candidate Hillary Clinton to watch the undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress showing top Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of aborted babies’ body parts.
