Ted Cruz, John Kasich Campaigns Agree to Coordinate to Stop Trump

— -- The campaigns for Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich announced in statements tonight that each candidate will cede states in the 2016 presidential race to one another in an effort to stop GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

Cruz's campaign manager Jeff Roe said in a statement that "to ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead."

Kasich's campaign manager John Weaver wrote in a memo that, "We are very comfortable with our delegate position in Indiana already, and given the current dynamics of the primary there, we will shift our campaign's resources West and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana."

Officials in both the Cruz and Kasich campaigns told ABC News that the campaigns coordinated on the decisions announced tonight.

Trump tweeted Sunday night after the two announcements, "Wow, just announced that Lyin' Ted and Kasich are going to collude in order to keep me from getting the Republican nomination. DESPERATION!"

Cruz leads Kasich in national polls but both men have been trying to be the sole beneficiary of the anti-Trump vote. Cruz has previously called Kasich a "spoiler" who has been "mathematically eliminated" from the race. Last week, Cruz told Glenn Beck that Kasich was "running to be Trump's vice president." Kasich has called Cruz "Senator Smear."

Asked during an interview that aired on CNN on March 20, whether he and Cruz could team up to stop Trump, Kasich replied, "I don't see how." When pressed, he added, "Look, we always talk ... if somebody wants to call and discuss things."

The decision for the campaigns to cede states to one another follows Cruz's loss in New York, which made it mathematically impossible for him to clinch the nomination based on pledged delegates.

Cruz, currently in the midst of a bus tour through Indiana, called the Hoosier state "pivotal" and a "battleground."

"And the state of Indiana has a national platform right now, the eyes of the country are all on the Hoosier state. We are facing a choice. Do we want to be behind a campaign that is based on yelling and screaming and cursing and insulting anyone you see? Or do we want to come together behind a positive, optimistic, forward looking conservative campaign with real policy solutions to the problems facing this country?" Cruz said at a rally in Terre Haute, Indiana on Sunday.

Kasich campaign manager Weaver said that New Mexico and Oregon were appealing to their campaign because, they "are structurally similar to the Northeast politically, where Gov. Kasich is performing well." He said the campaign expected "independent third-party groups to do the same and honor the commitments made by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns."

Weaver added that Kasich's campaign expected to "to compete with both the Trump and Cruz campaigns in the remaining primary states."

A spokesman for John Kasich, Chris Schrimpf, told ABC News tonight that Kasich was no longer going to hold any public events in Indiana on Tuesday, when he was next scheduled to be in the state. His campaign had planned to hold a town hall and primary night party in the Indianapolis area on Tuesday.

Kasich is scheduled to hold two town hall meeting-style events in Oregon on Thursday.