Rubio also argued Sunday, as proof his debate remarks resonated with supporters, that his campaign raised more money in the first hour of the debate than in any other debate. And if he can make himself a more entertaining candidate than Trump it might be enough to win. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the evangelical conservative who won the Iowa caucuses was on 13 percent, but with nine percent undecided, there is everything to play for.
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For some Republican leaders, Trump and Cruz’s back-to-back victories add urgency to the need to coalesce around a more mainstream candidate to challenge them through the primaries.
“Jeb is having some kind of a breakdown, I think”, Trump told CNN, calling Bush, the son and brother of presidents, a spoiled child and an embarrassment to his family.
From their movements and remarks on Sunday, you’d think New Hampshire is unimportant in the race for president.
The enmity was mutual.
“He made his case earlier Monday on Twitter, tweeting “@realDonaldTrump, you aren’t just a loser, you are a liar and a whiner. When an audience member shouted out an insult directed at Cruz – a vulgar term for “coward” – Trump repeated the term and jokingly reprimanded the woman. Ted Cruz, who earned about 23 percent of the evangelical vote. Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has taken his biggest dive in the national polls to date.
Not so long ago, Republicans saw New Hampshire as the proving ground that would winnow their unwieldy field of candidates. Sanders, a Vermont senator, is well known to voters in neighbouring New Hampshire.
Yet Rubio faced fresh questions about his readiness – and his ability to defeat the Democratic nominee – after Saturday’s debate, when he was mocked for reciting rote talking points about President Barack Obama over and over. Bush on Friday condemned Cruz and Rubio with faint praise. The Democrats’ Clinton-Sanders duel is veering into gender politics. But the strategy also depends on Rubio’s opponents cratering and clearing the path for him as the consensus “establishment” candidate, and as we saw this weekend, that part of the plan has not fared so well.
“We can’t get that legislation passed”, Mr Rubio said of the bill that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the U.S. illegally.
“And I’ve always like pressure to be honest with you, I actually like pressure and we came out very well”, Trump said. Christie and Bush both piled on Rubio, claiming he hadn’t been tested the way that governors have.
Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican race in New Hampshire on the eve of the vote, the final CNN/WMUR tracking poll finds. In fact, it’s the nation’s first primary and the next in a series of clues into what Americans want in their next president.
Clinton was shouldering renewed troubles amid talk of a possible campaign reshuffling. “Rubio”, Christie said on CNN’s State of the Union.
The former first lady insisted it was all overblown.
Of the 34 percent of Democratic voters who said that the candidate’s honesty was the top candidate quality they valued, 91 percent of them voted for Sanders, while only 5 percent of them chose Clinton.
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“You know, one of the things that’s amusing because people keep, in the press anyway, ‘Why do you keep saying the same thing about Obama trying to change America?’ I’m going to keep saying that a million times because I believe it’s true”. Hoping to avoid any last-minute misstep, he stuck to core campaign themes as he addressed cheering supporters in Nashua.
