Republican Party Super Tuesday results
As expected, on March 1, 2016, New York City businessman Donald Trump won the majority of the Republican primaries and caucuses. Donald Trump won the following contests: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Texas Senator Ted Cruz won his native state of Texas, the neighboring state of Oklahoma, and Alaska. Florida Senator Marco Rubio won the caucus in Minnesota and he took second place in Virginia and Georgia. To obtain the Republican presidential nomination in July 2016, a candidate must receive 1,237 delegates. If no candidate receives that number of delegates during the Republican Convention in Cleveland, Ohio during the first ballot, then there is a so-called broken or contested convention. After the first ballot the delegates can vote for whoever they want. Since there are still five Republican candidates running for president, a broken convention is a possibility. The Super Tuesday elections in 11 states gave the Republican presidential candidates the following delegates:
Donald Trump: 285
Ted Cruz: 161
Marco Rubio: 87
John Kasich: 25
Ben Carson: 8
Dr. Ben Carson has ended his presidential campaign.
The Washington Times reported that on March 2, 2016 retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson signaled the end of his presidential race saying he no longer sees a path to victory. Dr. Carson also said that he will not attend the Republican debate scheduled for March 3 in Detroit. Dr. Carson stated that he will explain his future plans during his speech to the Conservative Political Action (CPAC) Conference on March 4.
Dr. Carson, a decent and honorable individual, said, “I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results.” The retired neurosurgeon did not win or place second in any of the 15 states that have voted in the Republican Party primaries and caucuses thus far.
Currently, the total number of delegates received by each of remaining four Republican candidates is the following:
Donald Trump: 316
Ted Cruz: 226
Marco Rubio: 106
John Kasich: 25
Delegates received by the other candidates who ended their campaigns are as follows: Ben Carson 8, Jeb Bush 4, Carly Fiorina 1, Mike Huckabee 1, and Rand Paul 1.
Senator Marco Rubio spoke to supporters at Tropical Park in Miami and said he will continue his campaign throughout the United States. The Florida Senator continued to attack the Republican front-runner Donald Trump by saying the following: “The party of Lincoln and Reagan… will never be held by a con artist.” No Republican candidate has been more vocal in criticizing Donald Trump than Senator Rubio after spending much of the past year trying to avoid direct confrontations with his rivals for the nomination. It is expected that on the next Republican debate on March 4, 2016 in Detroit hosted by FoxNews both Senator Rubio and Senator Cruz will continue to denounce Trump as a fake conservative and a dishonest businessman.
Patrick O’Connor and Janet Hook wrote an article entitled “Donald Trump Notches More Wins, but Ted Cruz’s Victories Promise Long Race” which was published on the Wall Street Journal on March 2, 2016. The reporters explained that the Super Tuesday election results reinforced Donald Trump’s argument that he is building a lasting coalition of Republican voters who are fed up with politics as usual and the Republican establishment. Trump said at a rally at his resort Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida the following: “We have expanded the Republican Party. I am a unifier.” The New York real estate magnate promised that he would work with the GOP leaders in Congress, such as House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. However, Trump then said, “I’m sure I’m going to get along with him referring to Paul Ryan, “If I don’t, he’s going to pay a big price.”
The problem with Donald Trump is that he has called the Republicans in Congress “stupid” and, much worse, he has divided the Republican Party as never before. Already some Republican members of Congress, as well as well-known conservative such as Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson, have said that they will never vote for Donald Trump if he is the nominee. If he wins the nomination, Donald Trump will have a very difficult time uniting the party of Abraham Lincoln due to his frequent insults to practically all the other Republican presidential candidates.
The reporters pointed out that Donald Trump “continues to defy the laws of presidential politics, courting controversies that few other politicians could survive.” However, many Republican leaders in Congress, as well as Senator Rubio and Senator Cruz, criticized Donald Trump for his failure to immediately reject the support of the former Ku Klux Klan leader. Trump found himself involved in a more serious controversy over the weekend when he hesitated to reject outright the support of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. Trump eventually rejected Mr. Duke’s support and blamed his initial response on a bad earpiece during his CNN interview. But the delay in rejecting the racist David Duke hurt Donald Trump. Episodes such as this underscored Republicans’ fear that if Trump is the nominee, he may endanger GOP candidates at every level. The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan said that “Trump is not leading a revolt from within the party, but staging a hostile takeover of it.”
O’Connor and Hook said that the Super Tuesday’s results have given Senator Ted Cruz new grounds to argue he is the best alternative to Donald Trump, beating the front-runner in Alaska, Oklahoma and the Lone Star State, a month after his victory in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. These victories reinforced Senator Cruz’s argument that he is the only Republican who can stop Trump. But Senator Rubio did win one state, the Minnesota Republican caucuses. Senator Cruz stated at his victory party, “After tonight we have seen that our campaign is the only campaign that has beaten, that can beat and that will beat Donald Trump.”
The race now turns on the March 15, 2016 primaries on two winner-take-all swing states, Ohio where Governor John Kasich is the governor and Florida, Senator Marco Rubio’s home. If Trump is able to win the primaries in both of the states, it will be very difficult to stop him from winning the Republican nomination.
Will there be a broken or contested Republican Convention?
Nate Jackson wrote an article entitled “Which Party is Trump Winning?” which was published by the Patriot Post website on March 2, 2016. He explained that even though Donald Trump further cleared his path to the Republican nomination — but he also underperformed expectations, winning seven and not 10 or 11 states. At this point, the narrow path for either Cruz or Rubio likely involves a brokered convention. Trump has won 10 of the first 15 states, but only pulled a grand total of 34% of the vote on Super Tuesday. He has yet to win a majority anywhere.
Jackson pointed out that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined have about 50%. And Trump’s share of delegates declined from 66% before Super Tuesday to 49%. He said that Trump is winning because of voters who are not Republican. Trump’s surprise loss in Oklahoma may demonstrate this because it was a closed primary (only Republicans could vote). Massachusetts illustrates it too — it was Trump’s highest performing state (49%) and 20,000 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for him. Through March 15, another 10 states will vote and eight of them are Republican-only. Democrats are voting for Trump now to choose a weak general election opponent for Hillary Clinton.
On March 2, 2016, Spencer wrote an article titled “Prepare for a Brokered Convention” in the website the Affluent Investor. He thinks there is likelihood of a contested, or “brokered,” convention. He believes that the best way to stop Trump is for the remaining candidates to drop out, allowing a two-man race between Rubio and Trump. This is still the best way to stop him and will be for some time. However, it is highly unlikely that either Senator Cruz or Governor Kasich will drop out in time for Rubio to win the 1,237 delegates required to be the nominee. But Donald Trump is looking less likely to meet that threshold as well. According to the Washington Post’s projections, Trump will not be able to reach 1,237 if he does not win both Ohio and Florida.
Spencer said that the claim that Senator Cruz is the new anti-Trump is wishful thinking at best. He stated the following: “The person to stop Trump before the convention is still Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz, while currently higher in delegate count than Rubio, does not have a viable path to the nomination. Most of the Southern states have already voted, and in general they’re going for Trump over Cruz. It’s conceivable for Trump to face a major, campaign ending scandal – for instance, the New York Times off-the-record conversation could reveal that Trump plans on abandoning his immigration stance when in office. Or perhaps his tax returns show ties to the Mafia, as Cruz suggested. In the unlikely situation of either of these things coming to light, and then being significant enough to end his campaign, Cruz would theoretically pick up a large percentage of Trump’s supporters. But even in that very unlikely scenario, Rubio would the primary beneficiary.”
“Despite winning three states, Cruz has a very marginal chance of being the nominee. This idea that Cruz is the most likely person to stop Trump is a short-sighted, reactionary response to a slightly better than expected performance by a long shot candidate. It’s not impossible, but reasoning your way to Cruz being the nominee requires some Olympic-level mental gymnastics.”
Editorial by the newspaper Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner wrote an editorial entitled “An open letter to GOP politicians who might back Trump” which was published on March 2, 2016. Below is the editorial:
“If you are an elected Republican officeholder, think long and hard before jumping on the Donald Trump bandwagon. It’s a presidential election year. Naturally you’re thinking of your political career. That’s a given. You have principles, but you also measure the political winds. You care about your position within the Republican Party. You watch who is rising and who is falling. You might not admit it in public, but at times you imagine yourself as a future cabinet secretary or vice president, or even as a president someday.”
“Thinking about those long term goals, you realize that reaching them is not simply about judging who is winning right now. It’s about your character and judgment in knowing when a front runner is radioactive and could poison your career.”
“Donald Trump is not just another Republican candidate. His clear pandering to racist voters, his over-the-top sexism, his unapologetic vulgarity, and, perhaps more than anything else, his cynical lack of principle and substance now threaten to become defining features of the Republican Party. It is therefore partly up to you to decide how bad the damage will be, and how much it will afflict you personally.”
“Trump’s nomination is likely to cost the party more than just the Senate, some governorships and some state legislatures. It could set the Republican Party back years, perhaps decades. Trump is almost precisely what Democrats have long and slanderously depicted Republicans to be — an insouciant and rapacious billionaire bully, who cuts ethical corners to enrich himself without regard to the little people. His elevation to the presidential nominee would repudiate the Reagan Revolution that turned the GOP into a majority coalition 36 years ago. The party he leads would not be conservative.”
“The toxicity of Trump would taint everyone who got near. Young voters, who already lean Democratic, would shun the Party of Lincoln. It could lose them for a generation. A party that was great in its origins and has been great in its achievements has every reason to be great in the future, too. But only if it chooses principled leadership. A huckster will not do. And then there are Hispanic voters, who in Texas at least have shown genuine interest and willingness to vote for GOP candidates. That too may not last.”
Mitt Romney called Donald Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” who would lead the United States to abyss.
Mitt Romney attacked Donald Trump
The Washington Times reported that on March 3, 2016, in an unprecedented speech, former Governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, called Donald Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” who would lead the United States to abyss. Romney warned that giving Trump the Republican Party nomination would threaten to put Hillary Clinton in the White House, or worse, give Trump the presidency and doom the country to trade wars, job losses, and ballooning national debt.
The Washington Times said that Romney, in the speech at Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, blasted Trump by stating the following: “His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat…Think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, and the absurd third-grade theatrics. We have long referred to him as ‘The Donald.’ He is the only person in America to whom we have added an article before his name. It wasn’t because he had attributes we admired.”
Romney asked Republican voters to vote for any of the other three candidates. He denounced Trump “on every front, questioning his business prowess, temperament, use of vulgar language, his treatment of women and his ability to serve as commander in chief or as a role model for American children.” Regarding Trump claims to be an excellent businessman and deal-maker, Romney said the following: “You say, isn’t he a huge business success that knows what he’s talking about? No he isn’t. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage? A business genius he is not.”
Donald Trump attacked Mitt Romney
On March 3, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at a campaign stop in Portland, Maine. He responded to Mitt Romney’s speech earlier in the day.
Stephen Dinan wrote an article entitled “Trump dismisses Romney: ‘Failed candidate,’ ‘was begging’ for endorsement in 2012” which was published in the Washington Times on March 3, 2016. He explained that Donald Trump dismissed Romney’s remarks and unleashed a barrage of insults at the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, calling him “a disaster” and saying he’s irrelevant to the current Republican debate. Trump, speaking at a rally in Maine, said Romney was “a choke artist” who blew a winnable race in 2012 and is a failed candidate.” Trump’s remarks came just hours after Romney spoke in Utah and said that Trump would be a threat to national security and would send the country careening into an economic recession if he were to win the White House.
Democratic Party Super Tuesday results
In the race for the Democratic Party nominee, the very corrupt front-runner Hillary Clinton won several delegate-rich states of Massachusetts and Texas. She also took the Southern states of Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Her rival, the communist Bernie Sanders, won in four states— his native Vermont, Oklahoma, Colorado and Minnesota. In order to obtain the nomination of the Democratic Party the candidate needs 2,383 delegates. Obviously, Hillary Clinton is on her way to win the nomination unless she is indicted by the Department of Justice.
Hillary Clinton: 1,034
Bernie Sanders: 408
Conclusion
It is sad to see now Republicans attacking each other viciously after Trump insulted everyone. Romney and Trump insulted one another. A broken or contested Republican Convention would further divide the party, especially if Trump arrives in Cleveland with more delegates than Cruz and Rubio. Trump might act on his threat to create a third party confirming what many, including this writer, have suspected all along. The New York businessman is not and has never been a loyal Republican or a true conservative. It was good to hear all Republican candidates during the FoxNews debate in Detroit pledge one more time that they will support the Republican Party nominee. This writer hopes that if Trump does not win the nomination, he will honor his promise to support the GOP presidential candidate.
The best scenario would be to have very soon two candidates left. Senator Rubio must win in Florida on March 15 or his path to the nomination will be extremely difficult. Rubio said that he will campaign in 50 states and in Puerto Rico up to the start of the Republican Convention to prevent Trump from obtaining the nomination. The Florida senator, as indicated in polls, has the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton or, if she is indicted, whoever the Democrat nominee is. Polls have indicated that Senator Cruz beats Hillary Clinton as well.
