He is in fact getting more of them as he won a massive victory in the Nevada caucuses, leading his nearest rival Senator Marco Rubio by at least 22 points. “It’s going to be an fantastic two months”.
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He also taunted his Republican rivals, boasting his high numbers in states like Ted Cruz’s home state of Texas, Marco Rubio’s home turf of Florida and Gov. John Kasich’s state of Ohio.
Trump, no surprise here, was supported by almost 9 in 10 of the “tell it like it is” voters.
“We might not even need the two months, folks to be honest”, Trump said in his speech wherein he took a dig at critics who have doubted his winnability.
But even Trump had sought to temper expectations, saying with caucuses there are “always problems” and imploring the thousands of supporters who turned up at his caucus eve rally in Las Vegas to get out and vote.
In response to complaints that some caucus-goers had seen vote counters wearing Donald Trump t-shirts and hats, the state office Tweeted “It’s not against the rules for volunteers to wear candidate gear”. Ted Cruz seemed nearly relieved to put the caucuses behind him.
Not long after Trump’s win was certified in Nevada, Cruz’s campaign released a statement criticizing Rubio for not winning the state, but did not mention Trump at all.
“Right now all Donald says is, you know, he tells you what the result is going to be but he refuses to outline how we’re going to achieve these things”, he said.
This coming from the candidate who finished a distant fourth in the Silver State, sixth in SC, eighth in New Hampshire and fourth in Iowa.
Now there are reasons to believe that Donald Trump has been very successful in attracting the GOP fans who simply distrust the GOP establishment.
Trump won 55 percent of the voters who described themselves as “moderate”, according to the poll. After Nevada, the real test on where the presidential candidates stand will come on March 1, when 11 states go to the polls in what is known as “Super Tuesday”. The former group voted 70 percent for Trump, while the latter group gave 53 percent of its vote to Rubio.
Ben Carson, with just over 5 percent, was undeterred.
Cruz won the Iowa caucuses on February 1 but has fallen behind Trump ever since. Winning one or more of them is possible.
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Unlike primaries, caucuses allow participants to openly engage with one another and hear arguments from candidates’ supporters or surrogates, in meetings at schools, community centers and churches. In the Nevada Republican Caucuses, voters mark a simple ballot to decide how the 30 delegates to the Republican Convention are proportionally allocated.
