Cruz was left out of the equation entirely; Christie did not talk about Cruz in his endorsement of Trump, but instead attacked Rubio, seeming to cast Rubio as Trump’s sole remaining rival.
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Former secretary of state Hilary Clinton is battling U.S. senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democratic nomination.
Candidates fanned out to campaign in the Super Tuesday states after last night’s slugfest. And, while I think it’s not the only reason that Christie did what he did, it’s absolutely a factor.
It takes the aforementioned 1,237 delegates to secure the Republican nomination. Christie was once a rising star in the Republican party, a governor elected in deep blue New Jersey, whose endorsement was much coveted during the 2012 primary.
John Kasich, the only governor still running for the GOP presidential nomination, conceded Friday that he was disappointed to see Donald Trump collect an endorsement hours earlier from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Trump has won three out of the four Republican primaries and finished second in Iowa behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Rubio stopped short of calling on his fellow candidates to drop out on Saturday. “On the trail, Donald Trump now has his first mainstream surrogate, and one that has already proven he can get to Rubio”. “Now maybe others will follow Christie’s lead and say ‘I can be a good Republican, I can be an establishment Republican, and still endorse Donald Trump, ‘” said Rider University Political Scientist Ben Dworkin. “So here’s the one tweet he put out, he put out a picture of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is fantastic to me, that a guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup”, Rubio said.
“We have a con-artist as the front-runner in the Republican Party – a guy who has made a career out of telling people lies so that they come in and buy his product or whatever he does”, Rubio said.
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The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Trump might change tactics and begin actively raising money for a general election if he is the GOP nominee.
