President Barack Obama says Donald Trump’s positions aren’t different from those of the other Republican presidential candidates – he’s just more provocative in talking about them.
Advertisement
The candidates split down the middle – Trump and Texas Sen.
And who doesn’t – given the bullying, sexual innuendo and unintelligible yelling that has made 11 previous Republican face-offs something less than family-friendly?
Trump could open a sizable delegate lead if he is able to win next Tuesday in Florida, Ohio, or IL, states that allot all their delegates to the victor. With three delegates still left to be allocated in MS and another three in Hawaii, Trump won 71 delegates on the night (49 percent of those allocated), Cruz won 56 (39 percent), Kasich 17 (12 percent), and Rubio 0.
Normally Rubio – Bush’s former protege, whose relative success helped knock Bush out of the race – would be a natural fit.
He called him a con artist and said among other things that he had small hands, a charge that Trump took to mean as questioning the size of his manhood.
Manny Roman, the chairman of Cruz’s campaign in Miami-Dade County, said last week that Rubio should be the one to stay out of Florida, not Cruz. The Florida poll found Ted Cruz garnering 18 percent support, and Kasich 8 percent. This could occur if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates, giving the convention’s attendees the opportunity to choose another candidate. We’ve gone from Donald Trump having an unstoppable path to the Republican nomination to the possibility that he could be beaten.
The Republican contests in Florida and OH award all the state’s delegates to the victor.
Marco Rubio was expected to be a top contender to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.
“If anyone tells you Marco Rubio is getting out, tell them you heard it from me: They are lying to you”, he said.
The Trump train is rolling right over and through the assembled GOP establishment.
Similarly, Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas was the beneficiary of an influx of new voters in the GOP primary, far outpacing Democrats, something that surprised him because of Hillary Clinton’s long-standing ties to his state.
Among Republicans, Trump has at least 446 delegates and Cruz has at least 347.
One of the most vocal groups opposing Donald Trump is pelting Ohioans with $1 million in commercials over the next five days. “I think Islam hates us”, he said late Wednesday on CNN. She already entered the night with a 196-delegate lead over Sanders based on primaries and caucuses alone.
Look for whether any of the other candidates or the moderators cite the family’s role in the race.
“It is true, we haven’t done as well in some of those states as we wanted to, but it’s going to come down to Florida for me, and it always has in the presidential races”, Rubio told MSNBC in a town hall. Obama went on to win OH in the general election. Clinton may still emerge with more delegates in Tuesday contests than Sanders because of the size of her Southern win and the party’s proportional delegate allocation.
Spokesman Alex Conant says the Rubio campaign has seven fully staffed offices in the state backed by 40 full-time staffers and “countless” volunteers. But they ignored him, hoping he would disappear, and so Trump had the cameras to himself for his outrages.
Advertisement
“There are folks who have said you’d lose the Senate if Trump were the nominee”, said Oklahoma Sen.
