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. Trump’s night went great for him overall, and he couldn’t have asked for a much better finish a week before those crucial OH and Florida contests.
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Romney, who delivered a almost unprecedented takedown of his own party’s leader in the polls, pointed to victories for Sen.
Romney has not endorsed a candidate in the GOP primary, but clearly says in the phone recording that he’s speaking on behalf of the Rubio campaign.
Kasich, Cruz, and Marco Rubio – fighting one another as well as Trump – are all also looking to pick up delegates via a primary in Idaho and caucuses in Hawaii. A Republican candidate needs 1,237 delegates to clinch the GOP nomination; a Democrat needs 2,383.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is nearly certain to win the Democratic primary, adding some proportion of the state’s 148 Dem delegates to her tally.
Clinton and Sanders, meanwhile, laid out some of their key differences Monday in a Fox News Channel town hall event in MI with Sanders hammering his message of economic equality and prosperity. Clinton also has 461 so-called super delegates pledged to her campaign, and Sanders has 25 – so she holds an unofficial lead of 1,134 to 502.
And of the contests Tuesday, the ones Trump romped in – MS and MI – were open, and allowed Democrats and independents to vote. For Sanders, Michigan was a promising opportunity to cut into Clinton’s delegate lead. At least 8 in 10 voters in each party’s primary said they were anxious about where the American economy is heading, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks. Marco Rubio of Florida have urged him to drop out of the Republican primary.
The stakes get higher on March 15 with dual races in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Clinton outpaces Trump 52 percent to 36 percent, while Sanders has it at 56 percent against Trump’s 34 percent.
Trump said he plans to fight back in personal appearances and social media posts, arguing that the attacks on his business record and personal style reflect a corrupt party establishment seeking to cling to power.
Winning in MI is essential to the OH governor’s strategy and he’s been focused on the Wolverine State since the SC primaries. “That’s the way that democracy works”, Trump said on the program.
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Sanders and Clinton both voted in favor of a bailout bill in 2008, but it failed to clear the Senate, prompting Bush to announce about a week later that the federal government would step in with $17.4 billion in federal aid to help the carmakers survive and restructure. If Trump, 69, could sweep those two states and pile up delegates elsewhere, it would probably knock home-state favorites Rubio and Kasich out of the race and make it tough for Cruz to catch him.
