Rubio builds momentum, Cruz campaign shows signs of struggle

Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida were battling it out for second place.

In the Palmetto state, Trump won with 33%, Rubio had 22.5% and Cruz came in third with 22.3% – approximately a thousand votes shy of Rubio.

Sanders leads Clinton among younger Hispanic voters, however.

Nevada was supposed to be indicative of Clinton’s advantages as a candidate. Sanders, who has described himself as a democratic socialist, says yes and adds: “What it means to be a socialist, in the sense of what the pope is talking about, what I’m talking about, is to say that we have got to do our best and live our lives in a way that alleviates human suffering, that does not accelerate the disparities of income and wealth”.

She stumbled on the issue during the last CNN Democratic town hall.

Mrs Clinton’s next test will be in the Democrats’ South Carolina primary on Saturday.

“Obama is going to Cuba …” Sanders is a runaway favorite, earning multiples of Clinton’s support.

Will the Trump train gain steam?

It was at a rally in Las Vegas where Trump, the billionaire real estate mogul, said he’d like to punch a protester in the face.

Cruz, meanwhile, said he is the only Republican candidate who can beat Trump, having done so in the Iowa caucuses on Feb 1, while Rubio has not won anything.

If we’re judging by votes and victories, Trump is the front-runner for the nomination. Within minutes of Bush leaving the race, for example, some of his donors told Reuters they were preparing to throw their financial support behind Rubio.

Rubio, a former casino workers’ son who spent six years in Nevada as an adolescent, is playing up his ties to the region. Rubio, however, has yet to win a state. Perhaps the biggest development since then has been the consolidation of support behind Rubio, who in less than 24 hours collected the endorsement of three members of Congress from Nevada – two of whom had backed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush before he dropped out of the presidential race. There, the delegates vote for the candidate they were assigned to represent, including delegates for Bush or others no longer in the race.

Trump also leads among likely GOP primary voters of all ideological persuasions.

But the get-rich campaign cycle isn’t limited to Bush.

Winning states generates headlines, but the nomination is earned by collecting a majority of the delegates awarded in primaries and caucuses. Kasich has already turned his attention to delegate-rich Super Tuesday states, which will vote on March 1, and was in MA watching results tonight, not SC.

“We are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate for president”, Cruz said.

Trump heads into Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada with 67 delegates after sweeping all 50 delegates at stake in SC.

The establishment is rallying around Rubio. Trump is. Trump prevents Cruz from consolidating conservative and disaffected voters, while he also keeps Rubio from consolidating more moderate Republicans. So who can Cruz win?

Bush hasn’t formally endorsed a Republican since suspending his campaign, but “given the well-known antipathy between Rubio and Bush”, it’s possible that his supporters could go to Kasich, said Jeanne Zaino, a professor of campaign management at New York University, according to a report on KLEW-TV.

The anti-establishment tide in the Republican presidential contest is strong enough to sweep aside all before it. Rubio now has to row against that current – with the backing of the very establishment his opponents are railing against.