And the fact that other candidates still seem reluctant to tussle with Mr Trump has allowed Mr Bush to stand out as “the one that’s standing up for the party and the country”, his campaign’s communications director Tim Miller said in a private conference call with donors after the debate.
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“I know of no one in credible Republican political leadership or thought leadership who is pro-Donald Trump or even a defender of his” in Wisconsin, says Graul.
“It was so sad to watch him (at Tuesday’s debate)”, he said. Once considered the establishment favorite for the party’s nomination, Bush’s policy-heavy campaign has been sagging for months and failing to break into the double digits in preference polls. As Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander told The New York Times ” s Jonathan Martin: “A “Stop Trump’ effort wouldn’t work, and it might help him”. Bush, who used to have a lock on the state’s Hispanic Republican population, is now at 15. But, on Tuesday, Trump said he would not seek a nomination through a third party in the event he is not chosen through the Republican Party.
Central to the Cruz campaign’s new offensive Friday was Rubio’s Senate attendance record, which has already fallen in the crosshairs of GOP opponents such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“I’ve finally given up on Jeb – $35 million on TV and he hasn’t moved the needle”, a Democrat said. “I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the Internet, I think that, at that point, the terrorists will have won”. Everyone else is just not inspiring or straight-up insane. Even after his debate performance, some supporters noted that while he had held his own with Mr Trump, he had stumbled in his opening and closing statements – moments that should have been easy, uninterrupted chances to make his pitch. “Or will somebody be in there who’ll say no?” said Sessions.
“I think his hope was once he got into the general election to then start talking about legalization as a way to attract more voters”, Rubio said.
A whopping 90 percent of the Insiders expect U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy to be the Democratic nominee, rather than U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, but the Republican primary appears more unpredictable.
Sen. Ted Cruz was somewhere in between both arguments.
Just 2.2 percent said they remained undecided.
“Look for two especially capable U.S. Senate candidates – R David Jolly and D Patrick Murphy – to grapple next November”, one independent insider wrote.
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As for RealClearPolitics.Com which maintains an average of all major national polls, Trump’s popularity rating is 33.8 percent which keeps him ahead of all Republican presidential candidates. On Thursday in Iowa, facing a scrum of reporters pressing him on his immigration views-and whether they were always as hardline as he’s now making them out to be-the Texas Senator claimed that his recent rise in the presidential polls had prompted his enemies to conspire to bring him down.
