Sunday, March 6, 2016

Trump, Cruz in 2-way Republican race; Sanders still in race in Democratic contest


WASHINGTON DC - Donald Trump kept a firm grip on his lead in the Republican race for the White House on Sunday but Senator Ted Cruz emerged as his strongest challenger in weekend primaries with mixed outcomes.

Hillary Clinton extended her frontrunner status in the Democratic contests but Senator Bernie Sanders showed he is still in the race with a few victories.

Sanders won the Maine Democratic caucuses, according to US media projections.

Clinton and Sanders also faced off in a televised debate in Flint, Michigan, just two days before a crucial primary in that delegate-rich northern industrial state.

They tackled the scandal surrounding the lead-contaminated water in the city, with Sanders railing against the "disgrace beyond belief" and both calling for more accountability.

Republicans saw a stormy week in which panicked party leaders trained their biggest guns on Trump, the billionaire who has galvanized disaffected voters with an anti-immigrant, anti-free trade campaign filled with insults, attacks on minorities, and mockery of the political establishment.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio won by a whopping 71 percent the Republican primary election in Puerto Rico, a US commonwealth where residents do not vote in November's general election.

But the victory -- only the second, after Minnesota, for Rubio -- hands the youthful Cuban American contender the 23 party convention delegates at play.

Trump now has 384 delegates to 300 for Cruz and 151 for Rubio. Kasich has 37 delegates.

To win the Republican nomination outright, a candidate must win 1,237 delegates.

Failure to hit that number would result in a Republican nominating convention in July that could require multiple rounds of voting by delegates, something not seen in decades but which could conceivably throw the race to someone other than Trump.

Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential nominee who denounced Trump as a "phony" and a "fraud" this week, said he expected to endorse one of the three other candidates before the party convention.

Asked if he would reject the nomination if drafted, Romney said such a scenario would be "absurd" but left the door open to it, in an interview with CBS's Face the Nation.

Pressure on Rubio
On Saturday, only ultra-conservative Cruz scored victories against Trump -- in Kansas and Maine. Trump won in Louisiana and Kentucky, but Cruz picked up more delegates overall.

Rubio picked up only a few delegates, unable to capitalize on the establishment assault on Trump, who called on Rubio to step aside.

"I would love to be able to take on Ted one on one," Trump said in Florida, minutes after winning in Kentucky on Saturday. "That will be easy."

Cruz also urged Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich to drop out, arguing that the anti-Trump vote will be split as long as they remain in the race.

"If we're divided, Donald wins," he warned. "The field needs to continue to narrow."

But both Rubio and Kasich were expected to stay in at least until the primaries in their winner-take-all home states.

The next big day on the electoral calendar is Tuesday, when Michigan and Mississippi have Democratic and Republican primaries.

Republican-only nominating contests also are being held that day in Idaho and Hawaii. Puerto Rico also holds a Republican primary on Sunday.

Clinton nearly halfway there

After Saturday's contests, Clinton had 1,121 delegates, nearly half the 2,383 needed to win the Democratic nomination.

The former secretary of state won in Louisiana, the biggest prize of the night, but Sanders won in Kansas and Nebraska, pushing his total to seven victories in 18 contests.

Clinton was favored in Louisiana thanks to overwhelming support from African-American voters, while Sanders has tended to do best in states with largely white voters.

"What we are seeing in many cases is not just a racial divide but a generational divide. We are doing better and better with younger people whether they're black, Latino, or white," Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union" show.

"If the turnout is high in Maine today, I think we have a good chance of winning there as well. So I think we're showing strength all across this country."

End

source: interaksyon.com