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Marco Rubio backers had been hoping after two debates in which Rubio and Ted Cruz tag-teamed Donald Trump and played rather nice together that Cruz would take a pass on campaigning in Florida in order to give Rubio a better chance of winning his first primary election. The polls, for what they are worth seem to make this feasible: [interactive polling graphic] Florida is a closed primary state which means that many of the independents and disaffected blue-collar Democrats who have helped out Trump will not be allowed to vote. And, as we saw on Super Tuesday, the polling, generally,...

A plan to block Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump struggled to gain traction on Friday as rival candidates rejected it, while Democrats reveled in the chaos they hoped would boost their chances of keeping the White House. The country's top elected Republican, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, said he was not interested in an effort to draft him into the White House race. And U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative presidential hopeful, ruled out a deal to pick a compromise Republican candidate at the party's July convention, which senior party figures see as their best chance to stop the...

Doc source appears legit – link address directs to FEC disclosure site. Original app was created in late October of 2015 and signed off on January 30th, 2016. Those dates make it appear even more likely this has been a plan in the works for some time and more fully explains Mitt Romney’s anti-Trump speech yesterday. Mr. Romney is making certain he has a seat at the proverbial convention table should there be a brokered convention. It shows Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan preparing to make another presidential run – a plan that began back in October according to the...

“I want to get to the elephant in the room, and I’m not talking about the Republican Party,” Sean Hannity told a slightly rowdy, tipsy crowd at the CPAC pre-debate party on Thursday night.The Fox News host had warmed up the audience with his usual mixture of throwing foam footballs into the crowd...And now it was time to get to what truly was the “elephant in the room” on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference: the extraordinary race for the Republican presidential primary.The word Trump was uttered maybe two or three times throughout the opening day of...

Tonight was the night when I could clearly see Ted Cruz as President of the United States. He made the right moral judgment — dealing with Donald Trump was far more important than jockeying for position with Marco Rubio or John Kasich. He made the case against Trump in the right way — he was civil even as he eviscerated Trump again and again. And he connected with the audience not just with his command of the facts, but also by making his case in an effective, human way. When he asked the audience how many had been waiters or...

[snip] "......At the rally [Sen. Ted Cruz] spoke for forty-five minutes without notes, let alone a teleprompter. His speech was a mix of time tested tropes and new riffs pulled from the headlines. He did not stutter, stammer, or search for a word. There was an ideological coherence to his presentation that I have not seen from a presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. Nor was this just all talk. In his three-plus years in the Senate, Cruz has deviated from his stated principles far less than any of his colleagues and has the stab wounds in his back to prove...

Mitt Romney ripped into Donald Trump today, calling his candidacy a case of "evil trumping good.” "A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president. Of course, a Trump nomination enables her victory," Romney said this morning in an address to the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. And that was the tip of the iceberg in a scathing speech the former GOP presidential nominee gave of his party’s 2016 campaign front-runner. "Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University," Romney said. "He's...

Trump took seven of 11 contests, winning by stunning margins in states as diverse as Massachusetts (by 31.2 percentage points) and Georgia (by 14.4 percentage points.) There is evidence that he is not only winning over a large segment of the Republican base but also that he is bringing new voters to the polls. It is not hyperbole to say that Trump has created an existential crisis for the Republican Party – one that would play out very publicly in a brokered convention. Does the GOP risk losing its conservative identity – and many of its conservative members – by...

If you’d signed up on Eventbrite for the Marco Rubio rally in Baton Rouge, you got an email this afternoon that likely disappointed you.

2016 Super Tuesday Results and GOP Presidential Analysis Now that Super Tuesday is over and tabulated, there are some clear trends setting in. Here is a table of data I am using to see the trends, and comment on the data: Click for a larger, readable image Going into Super Tuesday, some very definite trends had already been established in the GOP Presidential race. Bacisally it was the very steep trend line of Donad Trump in both the cumulative vote and the cumulative delgates from the first four primary contests, the last three of which he had won. Here's...

Delegate rundown chart and a good Interactive Map.

Here’s how Rubio and Cruz can still take down Trump In theory, Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz could yet defeat Donald Trump and secure the GOP nomination — even after Trump’s seven-state win in the 12-state Super Tuesday primary. But as the conniving hero of the great Broadway comedy “The Man Who Came to Dinner” put it, they each have about 14 minutes to pull out of their hats the goddamndest rabbit you’ve ever seen. Cruz, who beat Trump in two states, might hone his message, find his footing, and make his move. Marco Rubio won Minnesota and surged in...

With a #NeverTrump hashtag and a growing list of high-profile people and groups declaring that they will never support Donald Trump as the nominee of the Republican Party, the effort to block Trump from winning the nomination is gaining force. But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday previewed what he said will be the single most effective argument for strong-arming anti-Trump Republicans back into the fold if he is the nominee. "You are either going to elect Hillary Clinton who will, I think, be the most corrupt president in American history, or you're going to help elect Donald Trump,"...

Just reported 'on 1431 at a nursing home'. Double-check your votes today! This could be Travis or Williamson Co., caller refused to say.

An Obama legacy will most certainly be of the extremely onerous sort A very recent televised ‘debate’ between the remaining combatants, uh, contestants, found an abundance of fireworks among the top three as noted in recent national polls; the names of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. As for the fireworks, the candidate currently and since the beginning of the debates, entrenched in the lead position, Donald Trump, was the recipient of the bombardment of fireworks, bombshells and zingers, while the attackers, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz hoped to inflict enough damage to cause the leader to appear discomfited...

The Republican presidential hopefuls darted throughout the South and New England on Monday on a frantic sprint before a fateful Super Tuesday, when voting in nearly a dozen states could help determine if anyone has a chance to stop Donald Trump as the runaway leader for the nomination.

Speaking to a rowdy crowd of about 7,000 in Kennesaw, Georgia, over the weekend, Marco Rubio made a promise: he'll do whatever it takes to stop GOP front-runner Donald Trump. But the Florida senator won't say which states he plans to win on Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the primary season. Rubio has yet to win a single state, and critics argue Rubio must win at least one of the 11 Republican states voting on March 1 to remain a viable candidate. On "Fox News Sunday," Rubio said that he could lose every Super Tuesday state and still win...

Note: This is not an institutional endorsement. Each writer at Hot Air has their own conscience and freedom to decide on their favored candidate. This post reflects only my opinion, not those of my colleagues at either Hot Air, Townhall, or of Salem Media Group. Several months ago, readers began peppering me and other writers at Hot Air about which Republican candidate we would support in the primaries. For my part, I have learned to wait until the vote takes place. Candidates drop out or make themselves unpalatable over the arc of a primary season, and this has been especially...

To my friends supporting Donald Trump: The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry. I'm as frustrated and saddened as you are about what's happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump. Please understand: I'm not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I'm a...

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said Sunday that he is unlikely to support real estate developer Donald Trump in a general election. "If Trump becomes the Republican nominee my expectation is that I'll look for some 3rd candidate - a conservative option, a Constitutionalist," Sasse tweeted Sunday night. Sasse, a conservative former university president, has previously been sharply critical of Trump's views, arguing the former reality television star does not embrace the conservative principles of limited government and liberty. Sasse becomes the most prominent congressional Republican to announce plans to deny Trump his support. "Christians - recognizing threats vs...