A nasty feud that escalated Thursday between Donald Trump and his chief Republican rival over their wives set off a new wave of alarm among establishment Republicans, who fear the GOP front-runner would drive away female voters in a general-election fight with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
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The Texas senator told reporters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Friday that the Republican presidential campaign has taken a “darker turn”.
“It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen”.
And doesn’t that bit about “detectives are digging into Cruz’s affairs” sound a little like Trump’s famous claim in 2011, that he had investigators in Hawaii who were amazed at the information they were turning up concerning President Obama’s birth certificate? “And truth has nothing to do with it”.
The claims in the publication stated that Cruz had cheated on his wife with five separate women, something that would be particularly damaging to him given he has campaigned on the back of the Christian Evangelical vote. The use of the image, from a GQmagazine photo shoot in 2000 when she was Melania Knauss and not yet married to Trump, angered the billionaire real estate magnate, who made his own veiled threat about Cruz’s wife Heidi in atweet late Tuesday. The tweet was in response to an advertisement from an outside group opposed to Trump’s candidacy that featured a risqué photo of Trump’s wife, Melania.
Cruz’ wife, Heidi Cruz, was campaigning with him on Friday and he gave her a hug and kiss before he began a town hall event.
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty ImagesRepublican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi looks out from back stage during a campaign rally in Charleston, South Carolina, February 19, 2016.
He added, “Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee”. Trump’s favorability numbers have decreased 10 points among women nationwide since November, to 23 percent, while his unfavorable number among women has jumped from 64 percent to 75 percent, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken earlier this month.
“Donald Trump has no ability to defeat Hillary Clinton” complained Katie Packer, a former top aide to Mitt Romney who runs the main anti-Trump group, Our Principles PAC.
“This man would be an embarrassment”, Cruz said. He’s directed these attacks at Carly Fiorina. “Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” Shopping in a suburb west of Denver, Lucas said Trump’s comments could drive independent voters like her to Clinton. Heidi Cruz is a powerful and accomplished woman who needs the attention she deserves. “Should we nominate Donald Trump, they will flock to her because they see him as someone who’s repulsive”.
For months Trump has defended himself against accusations of being offensive to women, saying that he hits all his challengers equally. Marco Rubio of Florida with the nickname “Little Marco”.
Basically, this campaign has been reduced to an immature, irrelevant and misogynistic exchange that boils down to “Your wife’s a slut!” vs. “You’re wife is ugly!”
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“I do not know Mr. Trump, I do not know his staff people”.
