Trump Leads National GOP Horserace, Cruz Surges Into 2nd Place

Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson said Sunday that talk of a contested Republican convention to select the party’s nominee violates terms of neutrality agreements they made with leaders not to mount third-party campaigns.

‘I don’t think he has the right temperament. “You’re going to have exceptions”, Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union. You never get things done that way”, he said.

Fulfilling his prediction, Trump called Cruz “a little bit of a maniac” in a separate interview, aired on Fox News Sunday.

“It’s a temporary solution until we get our hands around the problem”, Trump said.

Trump’s direct jabs at Cruz on the Sunday shows, and on the stump in recent days, was a major shift in his strategy, as for the first time, Cruz now represents a major threat to Trump’s pursuit of the Republican nomination.

It’s not the only evidence of Cruz’s momentum: A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll shows Cruz surging to a 10-point lead over Trump in the first state to vote in the presidential nominating process.

Trump’s comments were a departure from the times when Cruz was far behind in polls and wasn’t the clear and present danger to his campaign ahead of the Hawkeye State’s February 1 caucuses. This week Ted Cruz apparently told some supporters that he questions your judgment to be president. “I mean, I can say anything, and he said, ‘I agree, I agree, ‘” Trump said.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Christie said, hurt the country by voting against extending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection program of phone records, which ended days before the shooting in California.

Since Friday, Trump has taken aim at Cruz for opposing ethanol subsidies and alienating his colleagues in the Senate. A person who attended the dinner confirmed to Bloomberg that it took place, and that Priebus, members of Congress, establishment lobbyists and others have held similar discussions for weeks. Trump has made several appearances in Iowa, so most people who want to see him might already have done so, Johnson admitted. It might not make much sense for Cruz to abandon his strategy of nonconfrontation this late in the game, particularly when it’s been proving so effective.

“I’m more capable. Because I have a much better temperament”. “You know people don’t know that about me – I actually have a great relationship with people”. In fact I was criticized at the beginning because I get along with Democrats and liberals and Republicans and conservatives. Meanwhile, he questioned the evangelical bona fides of Cruz, the son of a Cuban exile who is now a church pastor. Kerry said. “These guys are not making up the science or the plans to do it. I think, frankly, a lot of members of Congress are on the wrong side of history”.