PhotoSupporters of Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Warren, Mich., last week.
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Rubio also leads among those who live in the southern portion of Florida, while Trump does better in central and northern Florida.
In a nod toward the kind of traditional politics he’s shunned, Trump emphasized the importance of helping Republican senators and House members get elected in the fall.
Speaking from Idaho Saturday evening, where he’s campaigning ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, Cruz told the crowd, “The scream you hear, the howl that comes from Washington, D.C., is utter terror at what we the people are doing together”.
I can see how maybe, just maybe, Cruz could win enough of the Trump forces and enough of the party regulars scared by Trump to win the nomination at the convention.
Trump entered Tuesday’s contests facing questions about his durability and ended the night with convincing victories in primaries in MS and MI and in caucuses in Hawaii.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, 45, follows Trump with 300 delegates and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, 44, with 151 delegates.
The state’s Republicans vote March 15 in their presidential primary – a winner-take-all primary now getting more and more national attention. “Also discouraging for the anti-Trump folks is that Trump voters say they are less likely than those supporting any of the other candidates to change their mind in the closing days”. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Sen.
Marco Rubio was in Florida, which holds its primary March 15.
One thing the two men may have agreed on though was that it is shaping up to be a two-man race.
Cruz, who has won the second largest number of states, has urged opponents to drop out and back him as the only major alternative to Trump.
Combined with Rubio’s disappointing performances on Saturday, this seems to indicate that voters nationwide are writing him off. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, while keeping a solid hold on groups that supported her in earlier races. He could continue to lose some primaries and caucuses in “closed” elections where only Republicans can vote – states where he has performed weakest – and still win the nomination by running up totals in the Mid-Atlantic, Pacific Coast and industrial Midwest where some analysts believe Cruz will struggle.
Among Democrats, 8 in 10 voters in both states said the country’s economic system benefits the wealthy, not all Americans.
“Rubio is within shooting distance in his home state with a week to go in this volatile nomination contest”, said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. His best scenario might be for Rubio and Kasich to win their home states, neither of which are promising for Cruz, and then get out shortly afterward.
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“We have come a very, very long way, closing the gap nationally with Secretary Clinton”, Sanders said on ABC’s This Week television program.
