Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced Sunday night they're teaming up to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.
Trump currently leads second-place Cruz by almost 300 delegates. Cruz and Kasich are hoping to prevent Trump from getting to 1,237 delegates, the number needed to clinch the nomination.
In separate press releases Sunday, the campaigns announced an alliance: Kasich will stop campaigning in Indiana and Cruz will stop in Oregon and New Mexico.
"I think that is a decision, an allocation of resources that makes a lot of sense and it's devoted to the principle of beating Hillary Clinton in November," Cruz said.
Both Kasich and Cruz's hopes like with an open convention in Cleveland.
"It's going to be an open convention, and then the delegates will pick that person who can do the best in the fall," Kasich said.
Trump called the two campaigns "totally desperate."
"It shows such total weakness, and it's pathetic when two long time insider politicians, establishment guys whether you like it or not, have to collude, have to get together to try and beat a guy that really speaks what the people want," Trump said.
Political analyst Seth McKee says it may be too late to stop Trump.
"If you look at the calendar right now, you look at Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island," McKee said. "These all have Trump written on them."
Those five northeastern states vote on Tuesday. All heavily favor Trump in the polls, meaning his delegate advantage will likely build even higher.
"The problem is that both of these candidates are pretty weak candidates," McKee said. "If they were both stronger candidates, then this kind of alignment might have some kind of traction, but they're not."
