Ohio Gov. John Kasich suspended his campaign Wednesday evening in Columbus. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the race Tuesday night after a disappointing loss in Indiana.

by JESSICA TAYLOR, DON GONYEA, and DOMENICO MONTANARO

(NPR) - Donald Trump is the apparent GOP presidential nominee after his two remaining rivals ended their White House bids.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich suspended his campaign Wednesday evening in Columbus. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dropped out of the race Tuesday night after a disappointing loss in Indiana.

The rapid moves in the past 24 hours bring to a close a wild GOP primary season that leaves the one-time unlikely candidate as the party’s apparent nominee.

Trump was widely discounted when he announced his bid on June 16 last year after publicly flirting with a White House run for many years but not following through. The real estate mogul dominated the news cycles and was impervious to ramifications from controversial statements and missteps that would have doomed any other nominee. The GOP electorate, fed up with a Republican Party they felt had too often capitulated to Democratic demands, was angry, and Trump became the vehicle for that anger and desire for an outsider candidate.

He now inherits a deeply fractured Republican Party and has many challenges in uniting his former rivals and opponents behind his candidacy. #NeverTrump forces poured millions of dollars into ads in Indiana as a last-ditch effort to stop him, an aim that would be for naught.

Trump will now turn his attention toward the general election against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — a more uphill fight than he had in the primary contest he dominated for much of the past year. He told the New York Times in an interview that he’ll begin searching for a running mate too, with former rival-turned-surrogate Dr. Ben Carson heading up that vetting process.