On Wednesday, the often-combative Trump struck a more conciliatory tone toward the Republican establishment that has fiercely resisted his advance – first by backing favourite candidates who failed to win votes, then by pouring money into campaigns against him. His calls for party unity are still bracketed by jabs at rivals “Little Marco” Rubio and “Lying Ted” Cruz.
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After retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s exit from the race last week, Republicans are down to four candidates: businessman Donald Trump, Texas Sen. There was a non-Trump case to be made, a week or so ago, that Rubio should stay in to deny Trump Florida’s winner-take-all delegates, despite it meaning a more crowded field. In doing so he once again dashed rivals’ hopes that their efforts to drag down his campaign might finally be yielding fruit. He said Clintons pledged delegate lead of more than 200 would continue to grow and soon foreclose any path to victory for Sanders.
“I don’t want to be that”, Rubio said.
In both states, GOP voters are looking for an outsider candidate: asked whether they prefer a candidate who is outside politics or has political experience, 60 percent of voters in MS and 52 percent in MI said they prefer an outsider.
“I believe with all my heart, the victor of the Florida primary next Tuesday will be the nominee of the GOP”.
Fox News’ Florida poll was conducted with 813 likely Republican voters in Florida from March 5-8 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. More than once, Sanders chafed at Clinton’s interruptions, saying, “Excuse me, I’m talking” or “Let me finish, please”. With Mississippi and MI taken together, Clinton wins more delegates.
Both plan to be in Ohio in coming days, in advance of Tuesday’s primary; they’ll headline an Ohio Democratic Party dinner in Columbus Sunday night.
Now, all he has to do is convince the rest of his party that he’s the only person who can actually stop real estate mogul Donald Trump. “Should the party rally behind somebody, it should be Rubio or Kasich because either one of them could win the general election”. Not only would he win 165 delegates, but he would break the backs of Gov. John Kasich and Rubio in their home states.
The results come less than a week from the March 15 contests in Florida and OH, as well as Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri.
But Kasich’s strategy suffered a blow Tuesday night in MI, where he finished third behind Trump, who won 37 percent of the vote, and conservative Texas Sen.
On the Republican side, Trump held clear leads among men and women, along with voters in all age groups.
Bernie Sanders, will square off in a series of pivotal primaries March 15.
The good news about Thursday night’s debate is that it begins a half hour earlier than most other weeknight debates have started this election season. But unlike Illinois, Ohio is a winner-take-all contest. He expressed confidence that the campaign would add to its delegate lead next week. In Florida, though, Rubio tops Clinton by 4, and she’s down 1 in a matchup with Cruz.
President Gerald Ford and challenger Ronald Reagan staged a spirited nomination fight at the 1976 Republican National Convention, but no Republican convention has gone beyond a single ballot since Thomas Dewey’s third-ballot win in 1948.
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However, the problem for Cruz and the other Republicans is that they need to eat into Trump’s delegate lead, at least if they want to win the nomination outright.
