Thursday night’s debate will take place at the University of Houston and air on CNN beginning at 8:30 p.m. ET.
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Colbert summed up Trump’s demographic wins in Las Vegas this way: “Donald Trump won a huge victory, taking every Las Vegas demographic: Elvis impersonators, white tiger handlers, even master illusionists”.
Rubio also said that he’d respond to Trump and Cruz if attacked in Thursday’s debate, but that, “I didn’t run for office to tear up other Republicans”.
“Now, Trump winning all these primaries has caused establishment Republicans to realize that Trump is winning all these primaries”, Colbert joked.
That could work out for Rubio in two ways.
Who will be in the debate? He could really hit Trump on his impossible immigration plan (this debate is specifically focused on Latino issues) and boost up his credentials as a Cuban immigrant’s son-a game of identity politics that Rubio will need to harness to survive.
“I would want somebody who could help me with government”.
But so far, neither Rubio nor Cruz has mounted a sustained attack on Trump, allowing him to emerge relatively unscathed while they try to win the mantle as Trump’s most formidable challenger.
But there is another possibility.
Obviously, with almost three weeks to go until the Florida Primary there’s much that could change, but for the moment it appears that Marco Rubio’s date with destiny is not looking at all good for him. That led, maybe directly, to an embarrassing fifth-place finish in that primary.
Cruz is slightly unpopular, with a 5-point negative favorability, but Trump is loathed. And Trump is, like, a Hulk Hogan version of Chris Christie: meaner, tougher, and with a professional wrestler’s instinct for the spotlight.
Rubio on Trump – On Wednesday, Rubio said Trump “like parts of Obamacare”, and that he should reveal specifics of what he intends to do in office because voters, “deserve to know exactly what the next commander-in-chief is going to do”. Ted Cruz, who is also Cuban-American, has 21 percent. He’s always needed evangelicals and social conservatives to come out in great numbers to have a chance at the presidency, but excluding his Iowa victory, those folks have gone for Trump instead.
“If Sen. Rubio can’t win in his own home state, it is hard to see how he can win elsewhere”, Brown said.
US Republicans are set to face off in another debate before next week’s “Super Tuesday”.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich is another wild card. And Monday, Cruz fired his communications director, Rick Tyler, after he circulated a video that falsely depicted Rubio saying there were “not many answers” in the Bible, when in fact, Rubio had said “all the answers are in there”.
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That could change Thursday night in Houston.
