Posted on 02/23/2016 8:09:55 AM PST by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is looking to outpoll rival Ted Cruz in Nevada's caucus on Tuesday to help bolster his position as the establishment favorite for his party's nomination for the Nov. 8 election.
Looming over the tight race between the two first-term Cuban-American U.S. senators is Republican front-runner Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who has won two of the first three state nominating contests and is expected to dominate the field in Nevada.
With Trump, a blunt-spoken political outsider, commanding a double-digit lead in a handful of Nevada polls, political strategists in the state said Rubio and Cruz were both aiming lower, each hoping for a clear win over the other that could propel them through the busy voting month of March.
"They're playing for second," said Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston, adding: "It'll be a Trump state."
A recent CNN/ORC poll put Trump ahead by 26 percentage points in Nevada at 45 percent support, followed by Rubio, from Florida, at 19 percent and Cruz, from Texas, at 17 percent.
Lagging behind were retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, with 7 percent support, and Ohio Governor John Kasich at 5 percent.
Kasich, who finished second to Trump in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary, kept his focus on bigger states including Michigan and Virginia, where he campaigned on Monday, hoping to gain support there among mainstream Republicans.
The rivalry between Rubio and Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, has intensified as both seek a boost going into the nominating contests in a dozen states on March 1, known as Super Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The more establishment endorsements Rubio gets, the more he’s going to go down. That’s who this fight is really against. The GOP establishment, the media, political correctness, the clintons and obama. If nothing else, Trump gives us a chance to beat them all. It’s worth the roll of the dice compared to the alternative.
Rubio=inexperience
One eyed Harry Reid will be counting the votes.
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