While Mr Cruz, the Texas senator, has support among the evangelical base, Mr Trump has succeeded in drawing some of their support in previous contests. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the remaining candidates in the race, had no victories on Super Saturday. Both Florida and OH use the winner-take-all method to allocate Republican delegates, making the stakes in those two states particularly high.
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After Saturday, the candidates don’t get much of a break: On Sunday, Maine Democrats and Puerto Rico Republicans are holding contests.
A battering of attacks to stop GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s momentum was put to the test in a series of states on Saturday in the race for the Republican nomination, with rival Ted Cruz winning caucuses in Kansas and Maine. The Texas senator, backed by a state-of-the-art voter-turnout operation, also trimmed the front-runner’s delegate lead ever so slightly.
The wins for Trump and Cruz on Saturday were a setback for a Republican establishment that has largely lined up behind Marco Rubio, a United States senator who was shut out in the four contests.
Trump has won 12 nominating contests thus far (including those on Saturday), Cruz six and Marco Rubio one. Cruz suggested it was time for other Republican candidates to step aside so he could go one-on-one against Trump.
“You’re going to see us win, win, win”, said the billionaire businessman, who ditched a conference of conservatives in the Washington area – a snub that organizers said “sends a clear message to conservatives”. “No matter what the pundits say, it is the voters who will decide this election”.
Now, Donald Trump’s lead is down to just four points over Ted Cruz, when he started off the night with a 25-point advantage.
And among Democrats, Sanders looks toward MI on Tuesday night and upcoming contests to try and catch Clinton in the delegate math.
Clinton urged the GOP-controlled Senate, where she once represented NY, to do its constitutional duty and “make a decision” about any nominee President Barack Obama may submit to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. On Thursday, Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, made a scathing speech about Trump, calling him a “phony” and a “fraud”.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won the Louisiana primary, typical of her success in Southern states during the Democratic primary, but Bernard Sanders won caucuses in Nebraska and Kansas, which is typical of his success in smaller states with more homogenous populations.
Ted Cruz seems to have benefited from anti Trump campaign waged by Republican establishment. “I would love to take on Ted one-on-one”. Cruz won Kansas and ME on Saturday.
With early voting already under way in the state, Trump exhorted them: “Do it now”. Rubio has 123 delegates and Kasich has 34. Republicans in three other states, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii, also will vote on Tuesday.
Heading into Saturday’s round of voting, Clinton had 1,066 delegates to Sanders’ 432, including superdelegates – members of Congress, governors and party officials who can support the candidate of their choice. Saturday’s states have a total of 155 delegates up for grabs.
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But even if he wins Florida, it will be hard for him to secure enough delegates before the party convention in July, meaning he would have to try to win the nomination through a contested convention.
