Senior Republican leaders are finally uniting around Donald Trump as the billionaire stands poised to land a knock-out blow in today’s Indiana primary.
Mr Trump has a lead over Ted Cruz of 15 points in Indiana, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. A win over the Texas senator would make him all but unstoppable in his quest to become the Republican presidential candidate.
As he gains momentum former foes appear to be swallowing their doubts, suggesting that Mr Trump has a fighting chance of uniting the deeply divided Republican party behind him before the nation goes to the polls in November.
Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who dropped out of the race in March after branding Mr Trump a conman, commended the tycoon over the weekend, saying that his campaign had improved significantly in recent weeks.
Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who once denounced Mr Trump as “a cancer on conservatism”, pledged to back him if he became the nominee.
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Even Mike Pence, the Indiana governor who said on Friday that he was supporting Mr Cruz, tempered his endorsement of the senator with glowing praise for Mr Trump.
Unease about the frontrunner’s divisive rhetoric remains, however: only one Republican senator or congressman who faces a tight re-election battle in November has backed Mr Trump and only 38 per cent of registered Republican voters said that they would unite solidly behind him, according to a poll carried out by Pew Research Centre last month.
By comparison, 65 per cent of voters said the same of Mitt Romney at the same point in the 2012 election and 63 per cent were behind John McCain in 2008.
It seems to many observers as if the Trump candidacy has led the Republican establishment through the five stages of grief. Having experienced months of denial, anger, bargaining and depression, they are reaching their ultimate destination — acceptance. “Let’s not ignore the will of the people,” Mr Rubio said, suggesting that if Mr Trump comes close to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination then he should get the nod.
Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, has forecast that Mr Trump will win all of Indiana’s 57 Republican delegates to add to his tally of 957. A clean sweep would put him firmly on course to reach his target, though not before June 7, the final day of the primary season, when five states including California will vote.
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Some Trump converts appear to have been swayed by their dislike of Mr Cruz, who has few friends on Capitol Hill. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, originally backed Jeb Bush, then Mr Rubio. Last week, however, he praised Mr Trump.
“I think he could be great if he gets serious about being president, and I think he will,” Mr Hatch said. “He’s a clever, smart guy who I think will want to be remembered for doing good things, so I have a feeling he can make that transition.”
Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, had condemned Mr Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from the US but said last week that he was excited by how Mr Trump had “challenged the foreign policy establishment”.
For Mr Cruz, Indiana has the makings of a last stand but his efforts to woo voters were not helped when John Boehner declared that the Texas senator was “Lucifer in the flesh”. Mr Boehner, who was the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives when Mr Cruz derailed efforts to reach a budget compromise to fund the federal government in 2013, added: “I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
Representatives of the Satanic Temple, America’s foremost Satanic organisation, were incensed by the comparison between Mr Cruz and Lucifer. Satanists look to Lucifer as a symbol of defiance against tyranny, not an agent of evil, a spokesman explained.
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“Cruz’s failures of reason, compassion, decency and humanity are products of his Christian pandering,” he added. “Satanists will have nothing to do with any of them.”
Mr Cruz suffered another blow yesterday when a new poll showed Mr Trump had a commanding lead in California. 54 per cent of registered Republican voters back Mr Trump with Mr Cruz at 20 per cent and John Kasich, the Ohio governor, at 16 per cent, according to the SurveyUSA poll.
