INDIANAPOLIS — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced Tuesday that he
was ending his presidential campaign, bowing to the reality that his crushing
loss in Indiana all but assured the nomination of Donald J. Trump.

“From the beginning, I have said
that I will continue on as long as there is a viable path to victory,” he told
supporters here. “Tonight, I am sorry to say, it appears that path has been
closed.”

Cruz, who staked his bid in the
Republican race on a message of conservative purity and religious faith, had
suffered through weeks of setbacks as the primary calendar reached the
Northeast, where Trump significantly expanded his lead.

Today Trump sealed the deal with an
important
victory over Cruz in Indiana, a win that moves him close to being unstoppable
in his march to the party’s presidential nomination.

The New York billionaire was quickly projected to be the winner
by television networks shortly after polling places closed in the Midwestern
state.

Trump was on track to take well over 50 percent of the vote,
eclipsing Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas. Ohio Governor John Kasich was
running a distant third.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were
running virtually neck and neck, with Clinton’s early lead eroded as more votes
rolled in.

Cruz had been counting on a win in Tuesday’s primary to slow the
New York businessman’s progress toward the nomination.

But Trump rode momentum from wins in five Northeastern states a
week ago into a big lead in Indiana over Cruz, whose brand of Christian
conservatism had been expected to have wide appeal in the state.

“Lyin’ Ted Cruz consistently said that he will, and must,
win Indiana. If he doesn’t he should drop out of the race-stop wasting time
& money,” Trump tweeted ahead of a victory speech he was to deliver at
Trump Tower in New York.

The loss for Cruz was a sour ending to a rough day in which he
got entangled in a harsh back-and-forth with Trump.

It began when the billionaire repeated a claim published by the
tabloid newspaper the National Enquirer that linked Cruz’s father, Cuban emigre
Rafael Cruz, with President John F. Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Campaigning in Evansville, in the state’s southwest corner, Cruz
sounded deeply frustrated by the bombastic real estate mogul, who has ripped
Cruz at every turn.

“The man cannot tell the truth but he combines it with
being a narcissist,” Cruz said, “a narcissist at a level I don’t
think this country has ever seen.”

Cruz termed Trump a “serial philanderer” – likely as
part of his strategy to try to win the support of evangelical voters. Trump, in
response, said Cruz had become “more and more unhinged.”

The only hopes that Cruz and Kasich have for becoming the
Republican nominee is to somehow deny Trump the 1,237 delegates he needs to win
the nomination outright and force Republicans at their July convention in
Cleveland to choose one of them.

Kasich vowed to stay in the race.

“Tonight’s
results are not going to alter Gov. Kasich’s campaign plans,” Kasich
senior strategist John Weaver said in a campaign memo. “Our strategy has
been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open
convention.”