Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would handily defeat Donald Trump in a general election match-up, while a clash between Clinton and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be a toss-up, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
The poll shows that Trump, who frequently boasts in interviews and campaign appearances that he would beat Clinton in November, would lose a one-on-one contest against her by double digits. I
Except in the improbable event that he comes back to win the Republican nomination, Marco Rubio is likely to become a political idiom. As Mike Huckabee is synonymous with a candidate who wins Iowa on the basis of evangelical support but can’t expand beyond that, or Fred Thompson is a stand-in for a candidate who launches his campaign too late, a “Rubioesque” candidate will be one who is everyone’s second choice.
Read More >>Donald Trump’s facing a wall within his party, with Republicans who don’t currently support him far more apt to prefer Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in a two-way race — or even to favor a contested convention to block Trump’s nomination.
Trump continues to lead in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, with 34 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents who are registered to vote saying they’d like to see him win the nomination. But he trails both Cruz and Rubio one-on-one.
Read More >>While teaching at Florida International University in 2011, Marco Rubio told his students there were two ways a candidate could be successful: He or she had to be a self-funder or the candidate needed to be “a sensation, a symbol larger than themselves.”
In his Senate race, Rubio was, indeed, a sensation — the underdog in the race against Charlie Crist, then the sitting governor of Florida. This time around, Rubio hoped for a repeat of that.
Read More >>Last night’s primary and caucus results changed the momentum in both presidential races. But they didn’t significantly alter the overall math and trajectory of the two contests. Let’s start with the Republican race. Donald Trump headed into last night losing some steam after Ted Cruz’s gains over the weekend. And what did Trump do? He won the Michigan and Mississippi primaries by double digits over Cruz, and he even triumphed in Hawaii’s caucuses.
Read More >>The story is getting familiar: Donald J. Trump won the biggest contests of the night, as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas captured the most conservative state up for grabs. Hillary Clinton kept a clear upper hand in the Democratic race, but Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont proved he would not be driven away anytime soon.
Tuesday’s elections could have brought new clarity to the presidential primaries. Instead, they only seemed to confirm that both parties would probably settle their nominations by battling for delegates well into the spring.
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