Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has won his third straight contest, as Trump has been projected as the victor of Tuesday’s Republican caucuses.
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After coming in second in the February 1 Iowa caucus behind Ted Cruz, Trump went on to win the primaries in New Hampshire and SC. “I appreciate everybody being here”.
The battle between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz for second place is still too close to call at the time of publication.
To say Donald Trump dominated the Republican presidential campaign in the months leading up to the first votes being cast may not properly do it justice.
Wrong again. Rubio lost the Nevada caucuses Tuesday night. That made the Texas senator the only Republican presidential candidate to have beaten Trump, who is making his first try for public office. John Kasich has five delegates and Ben Carson has three.
In a more muted address, Cruz gave Trump his due for winning in Nevada and then pressed the argument that he’s the only candidate who can stop the real estate mogul.
If Cruz leaves March 1 with a trail of losses to Trump – before heading into places like Kentucky and Louisiana on March 5 and MS on March 8 – the path forward will be daunting and he could face pressure from anti-Trump conservatives to step aside. Count Tracy Brigida, fed up after her husband was laid off from his mining job, among those caucusing for Trump.
Despite Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric, often described as racist, entrance polls indicated 44 percent of “Hispanic” caucus-goers backed Trump. After South Carolina, it seemed clearer than ever that this was a three-candidate race, with the party establishment moving steadily in Rubio’s direction as he continues to amass endorsements.
Rubio needs to show he’s not just the Trump alternative for Republican officeholders but also Republican voters.
He says, “We’re going to load it up with a lot of bad dudes out there”.
Preliminary results of the entrance poll found that about 3 in 10 early caucus goers said the quality that mattered most to them in choosing a candidate was that he shares their values, slightly more than the quarter who said they want a candidate who can win in November.
“These guys have to figure out how to turn their fire on Trump”, said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist in Washington. “He’s the most level-headed”.
Cruz also has the backing of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and current Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, along with almost one-fourth of the Republicans representing Texas in Congress and about half of the Republicans in the state Legislature. Donald Trump won SC, a conservative Southern state with a number of religious voters.
Kasich, who has spent little time in Nevada, placed behind Carson and appears to be holding out on Michigan, Ohio, Vermont and MA in mid-March.
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Reports early in the caucus process depicted it as a chaotic mess, including details of ballots strewn about and lax security measures when checking voters’ forms of identification.
