Ted Cruz claimed the first prize in Saturday’s four-state round of Republican voting, triumphing in Kansas as front-runner Donald Trump tried to pad his delegate lead in the fractious race for president.
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The wins for Trump, 69, and Cruz, 45, on Saturday were a setback for party leaders, who have largely opposed Trump and hinted they prefer Marco Rubio, 44, a US senator from Florida who took third or fourth in Saturday’s four Republican contests.
“I want to congratulate Ted on Maine and on Kansas – and he should do well in Maine, because it’s very close to Canada, let’s face it”, Trump quipped, referring to the Texas senator’s Canadian birth.
Saturday’s GOP races also included Maine, Kentucky and Louisiana, while Democrats voted in Nebraska, Kansas and Louisiana.
Since winning seven of 11 contests on Super Tuesday, Trump has come under withering fire from a Republican establishment anxious he will lead the party to a resounding defeat in November’s election. The Democrats also are holding a prime-time debate in Flint, Michigan. Puerto Rico Republicans will vote on Sunday. On the Democratic side, voters in Louisiana, Kansas and Nebraska were weighing in yesterday on the race between Clinton, the former secretary of state, and Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont.
His backers overcame support for rival Hillary Clinton from former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other Democratic establishment figures in the state.
Trump is leading Cruz in early results in Kentucky.
Trump responded by calling Romney a “failed candidate” and said that Romney “would have dropped to his knees” to garner his endorsement in 2012.
But both Rubio and Kasich were expected to stay in at least until the primaries in their winner-take-all home states.
“I have a very fervent group of followers”, he told the “Fox & Friends” TV show on Sunday, “and they’re not going to be happy if I have the most delegates and we go there and we’re a little bit short of a number that was really an arbitrary number”.
“I believe that he is a true fighter for conservatives”, said Berry, a 67-year-old retired AT&T manager.
But Trump has shrugged off the attacks and won contests on Saturday in Louisiana and Kentucky.
“What we’re seeing is the public coming together, libertarians coming together, men and women who love the Constitution coming together and uniting and standing as one behind this campaign”, Cruz said in Idaho. Such logic does raise the stakes even more for Rubio in Florida, where he’s no lock to win.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, 63, the only other candidate remaining from a starting field of 17, has yet to win any state. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. The March 5th contests leave Mr Trump hurt but still dominant, like a bee-stung bull elephant, and guarantee that the Republican Party’s internal strife will last for months to come.
But Trump kept the heat on the Florida senator.
Several more states will vote today, Tuesday and Thursday before the bigger states of Florida, Illinois and OH on 15 March. The results did not alter the contours of a race in which Mrs Clinton maintains a significant delegate lead.
Sanders’ efforts to narrow down the gap is, in a way, getting thwarted by the fact that all the states in the party’s race have adopted a measure wherein the delegates are awarded proportionally.
The early estimates were that Clinton, who appeared headed to a smashing almost 50-point win in Louisiana, had won at least 48 delegates on Tuesday and Sanders 37.
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But Sanders made it clear he was not planning to end his White House quest anytime soon.
