WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):
2 p.m.
John Kasich is up on television in Wisconsin in advance of the state’s April 5 Republican presidential primary, where he hopes to pick up delegates.
Kasich is running two ads with inspirational messages about his record and personal biography. They focus on his experience balancing the federal budget, his faith and a drunk-driving accident that killed his parents.
His campaign is spending $500,000 on Wisconsin ads, and a supportive outside group is chipping in another $500,000, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG. Ted Cruz’s campaign also has a bit over $500,000 in ads planned. Donald Trump typically has advertised only in the week before an election and hasn’t made plans in Wisconsin yet.
The outside group supporting Kasich is running an ad arguing he’s the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Kasich’s campaign sees Wisconsin as potentially favorable territory for the Ohio governor before the contest moves east, where Kasich also hopes to do well. But he’s so far behind in the hunt for delegates that he can’t win the nomination in the primary season. His only hope is in a contested convention in the summer.
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7:45 a.m.
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s endorsement of onetime Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz for the party’s nomination doesn’t extend to Cruz’s new proposal on U.S. Muslims.
Graham tells NBC’s “Today” show that Cruz’s call for increased surveillance of Muslim communities in the U.S. after the Brussels attacks “doesn’t make sense.”
The South Carolina Republican, who dropped his own bid for the White House, seemed to qualify his answer when asked Thursday about Cruz’s statement. Graham said that closer cooperation with the Muslim community would be helpful if it meant there would be a “better policing relationship.” But he said he didn’t think tighter surveillance would be the correct approach.
Graham has said he came out for Cruz because he worries that Donald Trump “would destroy” his party.