Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump has emerged as the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination in the U.S. presidential race, but two Cuban-American senators, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, are both claiming they can overtake him as a large group of states vote in the next three weeks.
Trump, a political novice, convincingly won his second straight Republican primary election Saturday, collecting nearly a third of the vote in the Atlantic coastal state of South Carolina, as Rubio, a Florida senator, edged Cruz, a Texas senator, for second place, with each getting about 22 percent of the vote.
Surveys show the flamboyant Trump, who has hurled insults at his opponents throughout the monthslong campaign, with a sizable lead over both Rubio and Cruz in the next state to vote, the U.S. gambling hub of Nevada, where Republicans are holding party caucuses on Tuesday.
Voting is set for 27 other states by March 15.
Trump told CNN Sunday that he expects to win the Republican nomination and face former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic contender, in November’s national presidential election.
He said that despite surveys showing him losing a hypothetical race against Clinton, he would give Republicans a chance to win such key states as New York and Michigan that the party normally loses in presidential elections.
Clinton scored a big victory Saturday, winning the Nevada Democratic caucuses, by a 52.7 to 47.3 percent margin, over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist.
The Nevada victory gave Clinton, who was the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, a much needed boost for her campaign after she narrowly edged Sanders in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month and he routed her in the New Hampshire primary.
While Sanders has won the support of young voters with his campaign against growing income inequality in the U.S. and the clout of Wall Street financial barons, Clinton declared, “We are not a single-issue country and I am not a single-issue candidate.”
Despite losing Nevada, Sanders said he still has political momentum and will shock U.S. political analysts and win the Democratic nomination.
Trump has campaigned on a slogan of “Make America Great Again,” vowing to build an impenetrable wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico to stem the flow of illegal immigration and to temporarily block Muslims from entering the country in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Paris and California.
A beaming Trump hailed his South Carolina victory as “an incredible movement with incredible people.”
Cruz, a conservative thorn in the side of the Washington establishment, told his supporters that he is the only Trump opponent who has beaten him so far — in the Iowa caucuses three weeks ago — and can win in the long run, as the one-time 17-candidate Republican field dwindles to a few contenders.
Cruz said Republican voters looking for a “strong, proven constitutional conservative” will turn to his candidacy. He noted that, unlike Trump, national political surveys show him defeating Clinton in a would-be contest.
But Rubio declared, “This has become a three-person race and we will win the nomination.”
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of two U.S. presidents, dropped out of the race after finishing a distant fourth in South Carolina.
That could benefit Rubio the most, if Bush’s wealthy campaign donors, part of what is considered the Republican establishment in the U.S., now switch their allegiance and send millions of dollars in donations to Rubio in an effort to keep either Trump or Cruz from being the Republican standard bearer.
Rubio told CNN, “I give us the best chance to unify” the business interests, evangelical Christian and socially conservative wings that comprise the base of the U.S. Republican party. “Who do the Democrats most not want to run against? That’s me.”
WATCH: Big winners in Saturday U.S. presidential contests
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