'A disaster from the beginning': How the 'Stop Trump' movement failed

(Reuters) - Republican John Hammond III had made no secret of his distaste for DonaldTrump and his desire to halt his march to the party's presidential nomination, telling the Indianapolis Star newspaper in March that the mogul was "unfit" to lead the country.

But the Republican National Committee member, a partner at law firm Ice Miller, said no anti-Trump group ever reached out to him, nor did he see any evidence that such groups were in the state until just a few days before voting in Indiana's primary election. By the time some direct mail and TV ads popped up, it was "too late" to make a difference, he said.

"There was never really any early ‘Stop Trump’ effort in Indiana," he told Reuters.

Trump became the Republican party's presumptive nominee on Tuesday with his resounding win in Indiana's primary, which led his main rival U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to drop out and heaped pressure on distant third-place contender John Kasich, the Ohio governor, to do the same.

In the process, Trump dealt a seemingly fatal blow to the high-profile effort known as "StopTrump" or "Never Trump" launched by conservative Republicans.

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