Trump notches another win as Rubio bids to elbow past Cruz
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives for a caucus night rally Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, in Las Vegas.
LAS VEGAS >> Notching three in a row, Donald Trump decisively won Nevada’s Republican caucuses Tuesday as Marco Rubio bid to elbow out Ted Cruz for second place in an increasingly urgent effort to slam the brakes on the Trump juggernaut.
Trump now can claim victories in the West, the South and Northeast — a testament to his broad appeal among the mad-as-hell voters making their voices heard in the 2016 presidential race.
“We’re winning, winning, winning the country,” Trump declared. “Soon, the country is going to start winning, winning, winning.”
Ticking off a list of upcoming primary states where he’s leading in preference polls, Trump predicted he’ll soon be able to claim the GOP nomination. “It’s going to be an amazing two months,” he told a raucous crowd at a Las Vegas casino. “We might not even need the two months, folks, to be honest.”
Six in 10 caucus goers said they were angry with the way the government is working, and Trump got about half of those angry voters, according to preliminary results of an entrance poll.
With time running out, Nevada was a critical test for Rubio and Cruz, the two senators battling to emerge as the clear alternative to the GOP front-runner. Rubio was out to prove he can build on recent momentum, while Cruz was looking for a spark to help him recover from a particularly rocky stretch in his campaign.
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Lagging far behind the two senators in the Nevada vote were Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Rubio, already campaigning in Michigan as caucus results rolled in, sought to project confidence that he can consolidate the non-Trump voters who have been splintering among an assortment of GOP candidates, saying, “we have incredible room to grow.”
But after finishing third in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and second in South Carolina, Rubio needs a win soon to support the idea he can beat Trump.
Cruz, a fiery conservative popular among voters on the GOP’s right, finished a disappointing third in South Carolina after spending much of the past two weeks denying charges of dishonest campaign tactics and defending his integrity. Another disappointing finish in Nevada would raise new questions about his viability heading into a crucial batch of Super Tuesday states on March 1.
The election calendar suggests that if Trump’s rivals don’t slow him by mid-March, they may not ever. Trump swept all of South Carolina’s 50 delegates, giving him a total of 67 compared to Cruz and Rubio who have 11 and 10, respectively. There were 30 delegates at stake in Nevada, and a whopping 595 available one week later in the March 1 Super Tuesday bonanza.
The billionaire businessman, in his victory speech, dismissed the notion that if more GOP candidates drop out of the race, they’ll coalesce around an alternative.
“They keep forgetting that when people drop out, we’re going to get a lot of votes,” he said.
Nevada’s caucusing played out in schools, community centers and places of worship across the state — a process that’s been chaotic in the past.
Count Tracy Brigida, fed up after her husband was laid off from his mining job, among those caucusing for Trump.
“I want a businessman to run the biggest business in the world,” Brigida said as she caucused at a Las Vegas high school.
Jeremy Haight drove straight from his marketing job to caucus for Marco Rubio at the same high school.
“He’s the most level-headed. He hasn’t said anything stupid or crazy … which is really what I think the country needs,” Haight said.
It was Cruz for Megan Ortega, who declared: “He’s consistent, he’s bold and he’s a class act.”
Preliminary results of the entrance poll found that about 3 in 10 early caucus goers said the quality that mattered most to them in choosing a candidate was that he shares their values, slightly more than the quarter who said they want a candidate who can win in November. About a quarter said they want a candidate who can bring change. About 2 in 10 want one who “tells it like it is.”
The GOP field that included a dozen candidates a month ago has been reduced to five, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush the latest to drop out after a disappointing finish in South Carolina. Kasich and Carson could play spoilers as Trump, Cruz and Rubio, battle for delegates with an increasing sense of urgency.
Indeed, Republican establishment heavyweights have been flooding to Rubio in recent days, including Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch. South Florida’s three Cuban-American members of Congress announced their support for him in the hours before the Nevada contest.
Nevada marked the first Republican election in the West, the fourth of the campaign. And it’s not one that’s gotten much attention from the GOP candidates.
Through Tuesday, the Republican candidates and the super PACs supporting them had spent a combined $3.8 million on television and radio advertisements in Nevada — less than a tenth of the $39.3 million spent ahead of last weekend’s South Carolina primary, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG data.
The entrance poll survey was conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Research as Republican voters arrived at 25 randomly selected caucus sites in Nevada.
42 responses to “Trump notches another win as Rubio bids to elbow past Cruz”
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Just as Don Meredith used to sing, “Turn out the lights the party’s over” song as The Donald lays waste to all others. Looking like a done deal.
He even won the Latino vote. Build the wall. The legals want it built.
Sarge – Trump won a majority of the 10% of Nevada Latinos who are Republicans. You aren’t particularly good at examining context, and are somehow confusing Republican primary voters with general election voters. Trump has something like an 80% negative approval rating among Latinos nationwide. He cannot win a general election.
klastri – not true. Somewhere else I read he has 50% of legal Latinos. Makes sense, because their chance of a job is damaged by millions of Illegals. Also Blue color and Blacks will profit because Trump will bring back manufacturing jobs by imposing obstacles on low-wage country imports.
Trump knows that he will not win in 2016. He is just going for the fun ride until then.
Trump will also win the Black vote once they comprehend this: Because he will throw out the illegals Blacks will profit by getting more jobs. And blue collar can only win from Trump: He will bring back factory jobs from China by imposing high import duties – and the increased activity will reduce the deficit.
Seems like China is buying a lot of American businesses. So, any tariffs against them will just mean we will work for the Chinese as well as buy overpriced Chinese junk. Time to learn Mandarin or Cantonese.
Née how ma?
Donald Trump and Donald Duck are tied in first place.
One step closer to another Democrat for president…
If Bush and Carson would give their delegates to Kasich, John would have more delegates than Cruz and could start the Republican party back on the road to sanity.
So you call what we have now in politics “sanity”? Delusions I say.
Ifs and buts were…Trump might take Kasich as VP.
Kasich can’t beat Trump with Bush and Carson supporters. Only Rubio can beat Trump now.
Rubio hasn’t done anything in his lifetime. Nothing. Zero. He has nothing to point to as an accomplishment, other than winning a Senate campaign. He also can’t debate. Hillary Clinton would flay him to small pieces in a debate.
Trump will have Hillary in tears if she’s not in prison. She may wish she was when he is done.
Mr. Rubio, sadly for him, cannot debate. I wouldn’t expect you to recognize that but it will be entertaining if it gets to that. And you keep talking about prison with regard to Mrs. Clinton despite your complete ignorance of the law. You don’t understand anything about it, and even wrote that the FBI is responsible for determining guilt in this type of matter. You don’t know anything about the justice system. Couldn’t you at least learn something – anything – before writing about it?
Rubio is the best debater. He’ll bring up Hillary’s Benghazi and email scandals. Game over. She’s headed to the courthouse to explain why she lied.
Jiujitsu Fighter, bring on the talk of Benghazi and email. Nothing, after many, many attempts and millions of dollars spent on Benghazi investigations has gotten no where close to a criminal problem for Hillary. Emails… whatever. The emails weren’t labeled classified until after the investigation began, and nothing but a waste of time and money will come out of the investigation, also. Hillary can stand up to whatever Benghazi and email spew Rubio, Trump, or anyone throws at her.
Folks at the RNC are suggesting that if Trump is the nominee, there could be devastating losses for Republicans at all levels. The Republicans cannot self-destruct soon enough for me. Go Trump!
Trump won across all levels of education. Where are the naysayers? Drop outs to PhDs Trump wins it.
He has a 60% negative rating across the board. He cannot win a general election. He’s destroying the party. Go Trump!
Trump: “I love the poorly educated.”
“I love the educated who choose unwisely”.
Sorry, I meant to say “I love the educated who choose poorly”….Trump is da man.
Republicans love the uneducated, for they are easy to lead by the nose.
It’s a little lower than I’d expect, but if you say that’s a nose, I’ll believe it — for I remember Tricky Dick.
The GOP establishment has spent the last year discounting the Trump candidacy, like some of the Democrats are doing right on this board. Trump is not fading away as predicted, in fact he is growing stronger. When the corrupt Democrat Party nominates Hilliary, no matter how the party faithful have voted in the primaries, they too will have discounted Trump, then when Trump win the election in November, they will have a problem explaining what just happened.
Any Republican is better than Hillery the Bull-S__t lady or Bernnie the Free-S__ter. But makes no difference who wins the Republican race for Hawai`i voters. The state will go Democratic as usual.
The indictment for Hillary will come at the worst time after she wins the Democratic nomination. Then Bernie wins by default.
An indictment for what, exactly? What are you talking about?
Thinking that Sarge and JF are the same poster.
Ask Sarge.
bottom line: hiliar is a felon and congenital liar. hiliar’s distortions of reality is reminiscent of nixon during watergate.
her advisors are co-conspirators who now must calculate the reward of turning state’s evidence against the risk of imprisonment, all the while knowing that the first to break from the conspiracy gets the best deal. eerily similar to nixon again.
hiliar protected obama during his re-election with lies about a video igniting the benghazi incident. obama is joined at the hip to hiliar and will block any federal indictment by issuing a pardon in the waning months of his presidency. nixon’s five o’clock shadow is surpassed by hiliar’s barking campaign.
strange to see democrat brown shirts rallying around hiliar as if repeatedly shouting lies and scapegoating republicans and independents will somehow make hiliar less despicable. again, eerily similar to a disastrous campaign of the last century.
Brown shirts? You need to go back to 8th grade history. This makes about as much sense as everything else you write here.
perhaps, too nuanced for fallow minds.
Right. If it wasn’t for spellcheck you’d probably have misspelled “nuanced.” Unfortunately, drivelcheck hasn’t yet been invented.
St1d, your ignorance was displayed at “hiliar.”
Can’t wait to see the Trump hillary debate. After he’s done verbally pummeling her, she won’t even be coherent enough to get on her broom and fly out of there…
Hillary won’t be able to withstand Trumps mysogynistic assault. Also LOL on your broom comment.
Yup – I like the broom reference!!
Should Trump ever get elected President the democrats AND republicans will soon be sorry,no joke.