Front-runner Donald Trump’s staying power with white, working-class voters is tested Tuesday in MI, the first industrial state primary in the four-man race for the Republican nominating contest.
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“Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the best of the bunch, but if you measure a candidate by the caliber of his campaign, Kasich’s lack of traction and organization make a vote for him count for little”, the paper wrote.
One recent poll of MS found Trump with a 20-point lead there, and another survey of Idaho found Trump with a similar margin.
He’s largely failed to reconnect with the tea party voters who made him a favorite during their national breakthrough six years ago, instead watching them flock to presidential rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
“The truth is that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same coin”, she charged.
Trump predicted Wednesday that if he wins both states, he will be unstoppable on his path to the Republican nomination. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders face off in MI and Mississippi. The silver lining is that Trump only won 53 of the 178 delegates up for grabs this weekend.
While Trump has stunned Republicans with his broad appeal, he’s forged a particularly strong connection with blue-collar white voters.
Trump’s convincing win in MI restored his outsider campaign’s momentum and increased the pressure on the party’s anti-Trump forces to find a way to stop the brash billionaire’s march to the nomination ahead of several key contests next week. Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, has not endorsed a candidate but has vowed to help challengers to Trump, who he says would be unsafe for the country. The polling could potentially provide some hope to establishment Republicans eager for signs of vulnerability on Trump’s part and fuel arguments for consolidation in the GOP race behind a single Trump challenger.
Trump now leads the Republican field with 384 pledged delegates.
With 130 MI delegates at stake, Sanders will win at least 63 and Clinton at least 52. Washington state Republicans held their caucuses in February, though delegates won’t be officially assigned until the May convention; its Democratic voters will get to cast votes during the party’s March 26th caucuses.
A major South Florida newspaper’s editorial board says it can’t endorse any of the 2016 Republican candidates – a rebuke that especially stings Florida Sen.
On the one hand, some advisers are warning that if Rubio does poorly in his home state, it could not only hurt his presidential campaign but also his future politically, including a potential gubernatorial run in 2018 or chance to be on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate. With an eye on the general election, he’s argued he could put Midwestern, Democratic-leaning industrial states such as MI and Wisconsin in play for Republicans. Democrats need 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.
Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico’s president has also participated in the anti-Trump pile-on, speaking out for the first time since the frontrunner characterised Mexican illegal immigrants as “drug dealers” and “rapists” . In this case, 61 percent of voters who voted in Democratic primaries through Super Tuesday voted for Clinton. With ranked-choice voting, we could choose the leader of the free world based on who wins majority support, not who tears down opponents just enough to eke by with plurality support.
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Heading into Tuesday’s contests, Clinton had accumulated 1,130 delegates and Sanders 499, including superdelegates.
