The U.S. Republican presidential candidates are headed to a crucial debate late Thursday, with Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz looking to curb the electoral momentum for the front-runner, billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump.
The flamboyant Trump, who has never held elective office, has won three straight election contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, as the Republican campaign moves to next Tuesday’s party primaries and caucuses in 12 states, the single biggest day, so far, in the months-long, state-by-state races to pick the party’s presidential candidate.
With political surveys showing Trump leading in many of the states that vote on what is known as Super Tuesday, Rubio and Cruz face a dilemma at the debate in Houston, Texas, the 10th of the Republican race. The question for the two Cuban-heritage senators is whether to mostly aim their verbal attacks at Trump, the one-time television reality show host with a penchant for insulting his opponents, or each other in hopes of gaining an advantage to eventually end up as Trump’s main challenger.
Both Rubio and Cruz have sharpened their attacks on Trump in recent days, with Rubio contending that Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan is empty rhetoric without many specific policy proposals.
“The vast and overwhelming majority of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to be our nominee,” Rubio said Wednesday, suggesting that Trump has won only because the Republican opposition to him has been splintered.
Two other candidates, Ohio Governor John Kasich and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, remain the race and will be on the debate stage, but it will be the first candidate face-off without former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who dropped out after a disappointing fourth place finish last weekend in South Carolina.
‘Washington dealmakers’
Cruz, a conservative agitator in Washington against Republican and Democratic leaders, on Wednesday attacked Rubio and Trump as “Washington dealmakers.” He said Rubio had collaborated with Democrats on immigration policy changes that Congress ultimately abandoned, while Trump has made campaign donations to Democrats in past elections and at times supported their policies.
Cruz is looking to win his home state of Texas on Tuesday and do well in other nearby states in the southern part of the country. But surveys show Republicans favoring Trump in those states and pulling close to Cruz in Texas. Rubio also faces a key contest in the southeastern state of Florida, his home state, on March 15, the same day Kasich is on the ballot with the other candidates in Ohio, the midwestern state he governs.
As he celebrated his victory this week in Nevada, Trump suggested to supporters he could take a commanding lead for the Republican nomination with more victories in March, when voters will pick hundreds of delegates to the party’s national nominating convention in July.
“It’s going to be an amazing two months,” Trump said. “We might not even need two months, folks, to be honest.”
Trump has predicted he will face off with former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential contender, in November’s national election to replace President Barack Obama, whose eight-year tenure in the White House ends in January.
Clinton has won two of the three Democratic state contests over her remaining rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist. Clinton, the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, is favored in Saturday’s primary election in the Atlantic coastal state of South Carolina and the two are battling in 11 states on Tuesday.
Some material for this report came from AP.
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