Mitt Romney urges Republicans to back Ted Cruz

Republican Mitt Romney said on Friday he would vote for US Senator Ted Cruz in Utah’s presidential nominating contest, but the party’s 2012 election standard-bearer stopped short of an official endorsement as he urged voters to deny the nomination to frontrunner Donald Trump.

In a Facebook post, Mr Romney said a vote for Mr Cruz in Utah’s caucus on Tuesday was the best way to prevent Mr Trump from locking down the nomination, which would give opponents a chance to select another candidate at the party’s July convention.

“The only way we can reach an open convention is for Senator Cruz to be successful in as many of the remaining nominating elections as possible,” Mr Romney wrote.

Mr Romney did not offer any praise for Mr Cruz, who emerged as a favourite of the party’s most ardent conservatives after clashing with party leaders in Washington.

Mr Romney did not say whether or not he would campaign with Mr Cruz, a first-term Senator from Texas.

Mr Trump responded quickly. “Mitt Romney is a mixed up man who doesn’t have a clue. No wonder he lost!” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Cruz, acknowledging the tepid nature of Mr Romney’s support, said the pledged vote enforces the idea that his campaign is the only one that can beat Mr Trump, likening a vote for Ohio Governor John Kasich, the third remaining Republican contender, to tacit support for Mr Trump.

“In my book, when someone says ‘I’m voting for you, and I encourage everyone else to vote for you,’ that’s pretty darn good,” Mr Cruz, a self-styled Washington outsider, told reporters in Arizona. “And I’ll take that and take that happily.” Arizona also holds its nominating contest on Tuesday. “As Mitt Romney observed today, if you want to beat Donald Trump, Cruz is the only campaign that can do it. That’s why he’s voting for me in Utah,” Mr Cruz said.

Mr Romney has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of Mr Trump, who has become the surprise frontrunner in the battle to secure the GOP nomination.

Romney, who lost to Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012, called Trump a “fraud” and a dangerous demagogue who would lose to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party front-runner, in November.