Donald Trump clinches the Republican nomination as John Kasich quits campaign

Real estate mogul and real­i­ty TV star Don­ald Trump clinched the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion on Wednes­day as his last remain­ing rival, Ohio Gov­er­nor John Kasich, dropped out of the race, hav­ing con­clud­ed that there was no path to vic­to­ry at the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Cleveland.

Kasich began his press con­fer­ence by wax­ing nos­tal­gic about his cam­paign, thank­ing his wife, his chil­dren, his cam­paign man­ag­er, advis­ers, and vol­un­teers, as well as rec­ol­lect­ing mem­o­ries from the cam­paign trail.

“We were nev­er, ever daunt­ed,” Kasich said, hail­ing his staff’s efforts. “We just got up every day and did the best we can.”

He then pro­ceed­ed to lav­ish praise on his con­stituents in Ohio before fond­ly recall­ing a few more mem­o­ries from the cam­paign trail (in South Dako­ta, in New Hamp­shire, in New York, in Michi­gan) and crit­i­ciz­ing the mass media for not under­stand­ing him or his rea­sons for run­ning for President.

“As I sus­pend my cam­paign today, I have renewed faith that the Lord will show me the way for­ward,” he said before con­clud­ing his remarks and walk­ing away.

Kasich’s exit leaves Don­ald Trump as the last can­di­date stand­ing in what was orig­i­nal­ly a crowd­ed, sev­en­teen per­son field con­tend­ing for the nom­i­na­tion. Now the anti-Trump forces with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty are with­out a can­di­date. They have failed in their mis­sion. Their par­ty is now Trump’s party.

Less than twen­ty-four hours ago, in the wake of the Indi­ana Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, Ted Cruz also quit the race, lead­ing Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair­man Reince Preibus to tweet that Trump was “the pre­sump­tive nominee”.

The tim­ing of Cruz and Kasich’s announce­ments could not have come at a worse time for the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty. The end of the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial con­test comes just as bal­lots are being mailed out for Wash­ing­ton State’s May 24th pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry. WSRP Chair Susan Hutchi­son and her sur­ro­gates had been look­ing for­ward for months to a com­pet­i­tive primary.

Now, there won’t be one. Peo­ple can still cast their bal­lots, of course, but the nation­al media spot­light isn’t going to be com­ing to Wash­ing­ton in advance of May 24th. Ted Cruz and John Kasich won’t be com­ing here to raise mon­ey, cam­paign, or ral­ly sup­port­ers. Trump does­n’t need to show up in Wash­ing­ton or Ore­gon, either… he’s now the pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee and the last can­di­date left standing.

With the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion now pret­ty much a fore­gone con­clu­sion, many of the vot­ers the WSRP had been hop­ing would turn out to par­tic­i­pate in the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry may sim­ply neglect to return their ballots.

On the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side, there are still two can­di­dates, but Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats opt­ed last year to use cau­cus­es to allo­cate all of their nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates, so Wash­ing­ton’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry will wind up being a com­plete­ly mean­ing­less, eleven and a half mil­lion dol­lar straw poll.

To all of the con­ser­v­a­tive intel­lec­tu­als and prin­ci­pled right wing activists who had joined forces to oppose Trump, this is a pret­ty awful moment. They had vowed nev­er to allow their par­ty to nom­i­nate Don­ald Trump, but they failed. The 2016 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Cleve­land is going to be a Trumpfest.

Repub­li­cans who oppose Trump are left with two unpalat­able, dis­taste­ful choic­es: join the band­wag­on, or with­hold their sup­port from their own par­ty’s pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee. Some view Hillary Clin­ton is the less­er of two evils, and seem pre­pared to vote for her in the event of a Trump/Clinton matchup.

For Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans, Trump’s pres­ence on the top of the tick­et this autumn could be dis­as­trous. Repub­li­cans, des­per­ate­ly hun­gry for pow­er, hope to win majori­ties in both hous­es of the Leg­is­la­ture this year. All of their can­di­dates will now have to run in the shad­ow of Don­ald Trump, who will increas­ing­ly define the Repub­li­can brand and what it means to be a Republican.

2016 may well be a Demo­c­ra­t­ic wave elec­tion with sig­nif­i­cant down­bal­lot effects. It could also be some­thing else… we can’t be sure what the future holds.

Research shows that pret­ty much every­thing Trump stands for is dis­taste­ful to a major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. When it comes to pres­i­den­tial con­tests, Wash­ing­ton is firm­ly in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­umn. It has­n’t award­ed its elec­toral votes to a Repub­li­can in over thir­ty years. George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Rom­ney all lost Wash­ing­ton to their Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nents. And in recent cycles, Democ­rats have cleaned up in statewide races.

The only Repub­li­can left in the exec­u­tive depart­ment is Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, and Democ­rats are seek­ing to replace her with Tina Pod­lodows­ki this autumn. Pod­lodowski’s can­di­da­cy has been extreme­ly well received in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and she’s get­ting ear­ly endorse­ments from all over. Repub­li­cans view Pod­lodows­ki as a huge threat and are try­ing to raise $1 mil­lion for Wyman to defend the last statewide office they hold on the Left Coast.