Ted Cruz shows signs of life with victories in Texas and Oklahoma, while Marco Rubio notches his first win in Minnesota.
Donald Trump, accompanied by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, takes questions from members of the media on Tuesday at The Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Donald Trump couldn’t have had a better night if he’d won more.
Yet even more crucially, each of his GOP opponents turned in performances that they argue provides them a viable path forward, keeping anti-Trump forces divided heading into some of the largest, last-stand states on the primary calendar.
“We are so excited about what lies ahead for our campaign,” Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said, speaking before the caucuses in Minnesota were called in his favor.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who carried his home state and Oklahoma, declared pointedly: “We are the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump – once, twice, three times.”
And Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who placed a strong second to Trump in Vermont, used that finish to claim, “We have absolutely exceeded expectations.”
Powered by African-American voters, Clinton easily dispensed of Sanders in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Texas. She even swiped away Massachusetts, a state where Sanders had competed vigorously.On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had an impressive Super Tuesday, rolling up at least seven wins over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – many of them by smashing, double-digit margins – granting her an imposing delegate lead that will be difficult to overcome.
In her victory speech in Miami, Clinton appeared to be looking ahead to the general election, wrapping her candidacy in ribbons of unity.
“We have to make America whole – we have to fill in what’s been hollowed out,” she said. “I believe what we need in America today is more love and kindness. Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong – and we’re not going to let it work.”
Sanders, who scored wins in his home state of Vermont as well as in the Oklahoma primary and Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, spoke early in the evening, but tellingly remarked, “This campaign is not just about electing a president.”
Despite the long odds, Sanders and his campaign manager said earlier Tuesday that they planned to soldier on all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July.
The Republican contingent still struggling to stop Trump also vowed to go on, each grasping their own rationale for ultimate victory and how they were best-suited to vanquish the former reality television star.
Trump scored wins in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas and Vermont. In a press conference in Florida, Trump, like Clinton, began the fence-mending that will be necessary no matter who ultimately captures the nomination.
He noted that Republican turnout had been consistently exceeding that on the Democratic side, but also professed that he would be able to work with GOP leadership on Capitol Hill, which has increasingly grown unnerved by his candidacy.
“We have expanded the Republican Party,” Trump said. “Believe me, I am a unifier. Once we get all of this finished, I’m going to go after one person, that’s Hillary Clinton. We are going to be a much bigger party. Our party is expanding.”
Cruz, who originally plotted to dominate the Super Tuesday set of primaries throughout the South, made a direct appeal to his opponents to unify around his campaign before it was too late to stop Trump. He will wake up Wednesday morning with the second highest number of delegates to Trump.
“Tomorrow morning we have a choice. So long as the field remains divided, Donald Trump’s path to the nomination remains more likely, and that would be a disaster for Republicans, for conservatives and for the nation,” he said. “For the candidates who have not yet won a state, who have not racked up significant delegates, I ask you to prayerfully consider our coming together, uniting. That is the only way to beat Donald Trump.”
Rubio made clear he would heed no such motion, latching on to the progress his campaign made over the last week in taking a much harsher approach to Trump.
“Just five days ago, we began to unmask the front-runner so far in this race. Five days ago we began to explain to the American people that Donald Trump is a con artist. And in just five days we have seen the impact it is having all across the country,” Rubio told supporters. “We are seeing in state after state his numbers coming down, our numbers going up. And two weeks from tonight, right here in Florida, we’re going to send a message loud and clear ... that the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con artist.”
Trump, in his presser, couldn’t resist taking shots at Rubio, and his antics, almost agreeing with Cruz that the Texan was his last feasible opponent.
“Ted at least has a shot, because at least he’s won a little bit,” Trump said.
Later in an interview on Fox News, Rubio struck back at Cruz’s call for unity, saying that Super Tuesday’s heavily Southern and Christian evangelical states represented Cruz’s best chance to dethrone Trump.Of Rubio, Trump zapped: “He decided to become Don Rickles. But Don Rickles has a lot more talent.”
“If Ted Cruz, given how he’s running, cannot sweep on Super Tuesday in the South, where in this country is he going to win?” Rubio asked.
Super Tuesday marked the first national test of the presidential campaigns when candidates were forced to simultaneously juggle multiple contests, and Trump and Clinton emerged with the widest geographic coalitions.
But the results also demonstrated that America’s two major political parties’ are valuing different traits in this open race for the White House. While exit polls showed that 50 percent of Republican voters on Super Tuesday favored a candidate from outside the establishment, 80 percent of Democratic voters prioritized experience.
If Trump and Clinton are their party’s nominees, that is a central piece to the contrast that will play out colorfully next fall.
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