VOA慢速英語：美總統(tǒng)候選人們計劃阻止特朗普獲得提名

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Two U.S. presidential candidates will work togetherand try to stop Donald Trump from becoming theRepublican Party’s presidential nominee.

On Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich announced a joint plan to defeat Trump in three states.

The businessman has been leading in the race for the Republican presidential nomination since February 9,when he won the New Hampshire primary.

Former senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton has won the most delegates in the race to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for president.

Barack Obama has served two four-year terms aspresident. That is the most permitted under the U.S.Constitution. Obama will leave office in January.

Some political observers thought Trump would not besuccessful in his campaign for the Republicannomination. But he has won primaries and caucusesin many states. He now controls the largest number ofdelegates to the party’s nominating convention. Thatmeeting will take place in July.

However, many top Republican officials do not like Trump. His positions onimmigration and foreign policy are different from those of manyRepublicans. Some officials worry that Trump will not support the party’spositions.

But with less than three months before the convention, Trump is the onlycandidate with a chance to win the majority of delegates needed to become the Republican nominee.

Both Cruz and Kasich have each said many times that Trump will hurt theRepublican Party if he is the nominee. They believe if he is nominated, theDemocratic party’s nominee -- who many experts believe will be Clinton -- will easily win the election in November.

On Sunday, Cruz and Kasich announced their plan to stop Trump fromwinning enough delegates to win the nomination. Representatives fromeach campaign announced that Kasich will let Cruz try to win thepresidential primary in the Midwestern state of Indiana. That primary willtake place on May 3.

Indiana has 57 delegates. The winner of the primary will get 30 of them. The rest will be given to the winner in each of the state’s nine congressionaldistricts.

Recent public opinion surveys showed that Trump has the support of 39percent of likely Republican voters in Indiana. Cruz has 33 percent, andKasich has 19 percent. If some of Kasich’s supporters vote for Cruz, hecould easily beat Trump and win most of the state’s delegates.

The Cruz campaign said the agreement with Kasich is designed to ensurethat the Republican nominee is someone who can unite the party.

“Having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in November would be asure disaster for Republicans. Not only would Trump get blown out byClinton or (Vermont Senator Bernie) Sanders, but having him as ournominee would set the party back a generation,” Cruz campaign managerJeff Roe said.

During the campaign, Trump has repeatedly criticized the Republican Partyas being unfair to him. He said the effort by Cruz and Kasich to worktogether to deny him the nomination is “sad.”

“Because of me, everyone now sees that the Republican primary system istotally rigged. When two candidates who have no path to victory get together to stop a candidate who is expanding the party by millions of voters-- all of whom will drop out if I am not in the race -- it is yet another example of everything that is wrong in Washington and in our political system,”Trump said.

In exchange for not campaigning in Indiana, Kasich was promised that Cruzwould not campaign in the Western states of Oregon and New Mexico.

Twenty-eight delegates will be chosen in Oregon on May 17. Twenty-fourdelegates will be chosen in New Mexico on June 7.

“Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland, where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee," the Kasich campaign said.

Both the Cruz and Kasich campaigns said they will compete against oneanother in the other states that have yet to choose delegates.

If a majority of Republican delegates do not vote for Trump as the nominee on the first election of the convention, there will be a second vote. The party’s rules permit the delegates that Trump won during the primaries and caucuses to choose another candidate -- or vote for Trump again. This means Cruz or Kasich, or even someone who stopped campaigning or never campaigned, can be chosen by the delegates as the party’s presidential nominee.

Words in This Story

convention – n. a large meeting of people who come to a place for (usually) several days to talk about their shared work or other interests or tomake decisions as a group

ensure – ?v. to make (something) sure, certain, or safe

top of the ticket – expression the presidential candidate; the top candidate

rig – adj. to control or affect (something, such as a game or election) in adishonest way in order to get a desired result

emerge – v. to become known or regarded as something