On Wednesday's The Situation Room on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer suggested that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz would not do well in a general election with minorities and women as he discussed Idaho Republican Senator James Risch's preference for Cruz over Donald Trump as his party's nominee.
At 5:18 p.m. ET, Blitzer grinned as he jabbed his Republican guest by bringing up the RNC's "autopsy" on the party's 2012 presidential loss that recommended trying to appeal to minorities and women, as the CNN host posed: "After losing in 2012 when President Obama was reelected, the Republican National Committee did what they called an autopsy, how to bring in more support from women, from minorities, from young people. How's that working out so far?"
Sensing that he was being roasted a bit by Blitzer, Senator Risch laughed and responded: "Well, kind of like this whole campaign season, conventional wisdom is out the window. There's things happening out there with the general electorate that just really has escaped everyone. The predictions have been not very good. Some of the polling hasn't been very good."
The CNN host then divulged his expectation that Cruz as the nominee would have problems with minorities and women as he followed up: "Cruz is not going to do well with a lot of those groups either, is he?"
Senator Risch responded: "Well, that's, there has certainly been some polling that says that. I think, on the other hand, I think maybe Cruz has the ability to step up to do that. But, again, that remains to be seen."
