In one likely bad scenario for the Republican establishment on Tuesday, Trump wins Florida and Ohio giving him 165 additional delegates while defeating two of his opponents in their home states. Trump currently leads the Republican field after Tuesday night’s voting with 456 delegates compared to Cruz’s 353. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has 151 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 54. A Republican candidate needs 1,237 delegates to capture the nomination. With four state primaries and a caucus in play this coming Tuesday, Trump could pick up as many as 268 additional delegates should he run the table. The following is a list of primaries scheduled for Tuesday, March 15:
• Illinois primary – 182 Democratic delegates, 69 Republican
• Missouri primary – 84 Democratic delegates, 52 Republican
• North Carolina primary – 121 Democratic delegates, 72 Republican
• Northern Mariana Islands Republican caucus primary – 9 delegates
• Ohio primary – 159 Democratic delegates, 66 Republican
Elite Republican insiders have good reason to panic in spite of the vicious attacks they have launched against their own leading candidate. Mr. Trump is dominating in every one of Tuesday’s primaries according to most current national polls — by double digits in most. In Florida, Trump holds a 23 point lead against Rubio, the state’s sitting senator, followed by Ted Cruz at 16 percent and John Kasich who gets 10 percent.
The Fox News Poll was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research, March 5-8, 2016 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Democrats have stirred the Republican chaos and many on the left and right say the Republican divide could allow Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a cakewalk into the White House. However, Mrs. Clinton is having trouble putting away socialist Independent Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and enthusiasm and participation in the Democrat races are depressed while Republican enthusiasm is high and most state turnouts are setting records. Sanders beat Clinton in a close contest in Michigan on Tuesday leaving the embattled former first lady to regroup. In addition to Sanders’ unexpected strength, Clinton is the subject of an FBI investigation regarding matters of national security related to her sharing classified information with aides and others on her homebrew computer server. Last week, the aide who helped Clinton set up the unsecured server was granted immunity for his testimony by the Justice Department.
While both leading candidates for their respective parties face issues, none of the Republican candidates are threatened by a potential indictment. For his part, Mr. Trump has began calling for party unity and has held talks with Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan. In addition, A CNN /ORC poll published Wednesday also shows Trump leading the two Republican presidential rivals in their home states, topping Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio. In Ohio, Trump gets 41 percent to Kasich’s 35 percent, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in third at 15 percent and Rubio in fourth with 7 percent. In Florida that new poll shows Trump at 40 percent to Rubio’s 24 percent, with Cruz at 19 percent and Kasich at 5 percent.
