Republicans Vote in Four States #Trump2016
Five U.S. states are holding contests on Saturday in the first test of voter sentiment since a public rupture within the Republican Party this week that pitted supporters of real estate mogul Donald Trump against a collection of establishment figures trying to block his path to the 2016 presidential nomination.
The Republican primary in Louisiana and caucuses in Kentucky, Kansas, and Maine have overshadowed the Democratic race, in which front-runner Hillary Clinton looks to maintain her lead in delegates over Senator Bernie Sanders with a primary in Louisiana and caucuses in Kansas and Nebraska. On Sunday, Democrats have caucuses in Maine and Republicans vote in Puerto Rico.
The simmering Republican civil war boiled over on March 3 when Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential candidate, called Trump a vulgar bully unfit to be president, and said his policies would drive the U.S. into recession. Romney urged Republicans to vote strategically in upcoming nominating contests as way to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination. If successful, that may force a contested convention in Cleveland in July, where delegates could pick someone else to be the party standard-bearer in the November general election.
‘Eating Their Own’
Trump, who has won 10 of the first 15 nominating contests, has brushed off such criticism while emphasizing how he’s attracting new voters to the Republican Party with his brash, “tell it like it is” style.
“This is a movement, folks, there’s never been anything like this,” Trump said on Saturday at a rally in Wichita, Kansas, where Republicans will caucus at more than 100 sites to pick a nominee. And he issued a warning to those in the party plotting a way to stall his candidacy. “The Republicans are eating their own, they’ve got to be very careful.”
Trump pulled out of a planned speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday in National Harbor, Maryland, an unusual move by a Republican candidate, in order to campaign in Kansas before heading to Florida.
The states voting on Saturday have 155 Republican delegates, with the Democratic contests offering 126 including so-called superdelegates, a mix of elected officials and party leaders who are free to back whom they like and change their loyalties.
Louisiana Battle
The biggest prize on Saturday in the Republican fight is Louisiana, bordering Senator Ted Cruz’s home state of Texas. It has a large number of evangelical Christian voters, as well as a tradition of backing populist candidates. Polls opened at 8 a.m. ET and will close at 9 p.m. ET. Trump leads Cruz by 16 percentage points in a
RealClearPolitics average of polls conducted this month, with Florida Senator Marco Rubio third and Ohio Governor John Kasich fourth.
Turnout in Louisiana was expected to be about 20 percent to 25 percent, and early reports indicated slow voter participation overall with more moderate activity in some areas, said Meg Casper, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana secretary of state’s office. At a precinct in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, election workers said 14 percent of registered voters had voted as of early afternoon, a bit light but consistent with expectations.
Heavy Turnout
In Kansas, Republican Party Executive Director Clay Barker reported heavy turnout, with even small counties reporting more voters than anticipated, according to the Associated Press. Cruz was ahead with about 3 percent of the vote tallied, taking 53 percent to 21 percent for Trump and 14 percent for Rubio.
Cruz’s campaign has been active in Louisiana for weeks, said Jason DorĂ©, executive director of the state party. Trump and Cruz staged rallies in Louisiana on Friday night, while Rubio canceled a planned event in Baton Rouge to focus on campaigning in Kansas.
The Texas senator addressed a cheering crowd of about 2,000 on Friday night in Mandeville, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, after receiving an introduction from local hero Phil Robertson, star of the A&E reality television show “Duck Dynasty.”
Cruz hammered Trump for being a hypocrite on immigration, which prompted one man in the audience to yell: “He’s a liar!” Cruz didn’t acknowledge the interjection, but highlighted Trump’s past political donations to candidates who back a more lenient immigration policy.
‘An Embarrassment’
“You don’t get to support open-border Democrats year after year and then wake up as a presidential candidate and say, ’You know, we’ve got to secure the border,”’ Cruz said.
Robert Coe, 52, of Mandeville, called Trump “an embarrassment.”
“You never know what’s going to come out of his mouth,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s going to divide the party so much that we wouldn’t win.”
Rubio, who held three rallies Friday in Kansas, told reporters that he’s prepared for a protracted nomination fight. Florida and Ohio both vote on March 15, when the winners garner all of each state’s delegates.
Playing for Time
The Florida senator said he “feels good” about the calendar from Saturday on, and singled out Kansas as a place that looked particularly promising.
“This is a very sad situation to watch unfolding at this time for the Republican Party, and we still have time to prevent it,” Rubio told reporters. “That’s why I feel so good about the states that are coming up.”
Miles McMillan, 56, of Leawood, Kansas, attended a Rubio rally in Overland Park, Kansas, with his wife, Laurie McMillan. He said the couple plans to caucus on Saturday, even though they haven’t done so in the past, and that he’s deciding between Kasich and Rubio. They both plan to oppose Trump.
“I’m usually on the sidelines, but Trump motivated me,” Miles McMillan said. “It’s been great theater and entertainment, but this is starting to get real.”
Kasich is campaigning on Saturday in Michigan, which has its primary on Tuesday. The Ohio governor said he hopes for a strong showing in his neighboring state. Kasich has said he’ll drop out of the presidential contest if he doesn’t win Ohio, and is gearing up for a convention fight if he prevails.
Romney Strategy
Playing the role of party tactician and elder statesman, Romney has urged voters in Florida to back Rubio and those in Ohio to select Kasich to deny Trump a majority of delegates. However, Rubio trails Trump by a wide margin in Florida polls, and Kasich trails the front-runner narrowly in Ohio. Cruz on Friday rejected the idea of a contested convention, warning that it would lead to a “manifest revolt” of Republican voters.
On the Democratic side, Clinton led Sanders by almost 40 percentage points in a RealClearPolitics average of polls in Louisiana. She hopes to continue attracting overwhelming support from black voters, who make up 54 percent of registered Democrats in the state. Exit polls show the former secretary of state captured more than 80 percent of that segment of the electorate in the South Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Alabama primaries.
Sanders has a chance to win in Kansas, Nebraska and Maine, states where white voters dominate, and will compete for delegates in Louisiana, Tad Devine, his senior media strategist, told reporters on March 1.
With populous states like New York, California and Illinois still to vote, Clinton has 45 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win, according to an AP tally that includes superdelegates.