WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times local):
7:40 a.m.
Donald Trump has won nearly the all the delegates who were at stake in the West Virginia and Nebraska primaries.
Overall, Trump now has 1,135 delegates, 92 percent of what he needs for the Republican presidential nomination.
He won all 36 delegates in Nebraska in Tuesday’s contest and 31 of the 34 delegates at stake in West Virginia.
West Virginia’s complicated rules could cost him the other three, who are uncommitted. In West Virginia, most of the delegates are elected directly by voters.
Twenty-two delegates are elected according to the statewide vote. However, no more than two delegates can be from the same county.
Thirteen Trump delegates ran from Kanawha County, home to Charleston, the state capital.
___
7:30 a.m.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says he’ll live up to his pledge to the Republican Party to support the GOP’s presidential nominee. But that doesn’t appear to mean he will campaign on behalf of Donald Trump.
Rubio says he still has the same deep reservations about Trump’s ideas and conduct that he voiced as his rival in the primary campaign. He says Trump would be better served by having help in the campaign from people who agree with his policies and are enthusiastic about his candidacy.
Rubio is clearly not enthusiastic about Trump at all. But he says Democrat Hillary Clinton will be a worse choice in the fall campaign. The senator says he’s “even more scared about her being in control of the U.S. government.”
___
7:20 a.m.
Donald Trump says he understands why the Bush family “is sitting out” the Republican presidential campaign.
Trump says he doesn’t have the support of former candidate Jeb Bush because “I hit him really hard.” Even so, he says it was “dishonorable” of Bush to back out of a pledge to support the party’s nominee.
Former presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush have also declined to back Trump.
Trump spoke Wednesday morning on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
___
7 a.m.
A key House Republican is brushing aside talk of a possible third-party candidacy in the presidential election campaign.
Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma says it’s awfully late for anybody to make such a move. There have been rumblings of a possible independent bid organized by conservative Republicans who don’t like Donald Trump.
But Cole, who is deputy whip for House Republicans, says on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” he thinks such an effort would be a waste of time. And he says a third-party effort from the political right would probably ensure that Democrat Hillary Clinton becomes president.
___