Tuesday’s primaries in five big States with 358 delegates at stake may well define the Republican presidential race even as front-runner Donald Trump, faced with mounting confrontations at his rallies, continues to lead in polls in four of the five States.
Except for Ohio, where he is tied or trailing Governor John Kasich in different polls, Trump has a fairly comfortable lead in the other four States — Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri.
For Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida who has given Trump a hard time in debates, it is a veritable do-or-die battle in his home-State that will give the winner all its 99 delegates. Rubio is trailing badly in as many as 10 Florida polls conducted over the past 10 days, giving Trump an average 19 percentage point lead.
Both Rubio and Kasich may have to quit the race if they don’t win their respective home-States. like Florida, Ohio with 66 delegates is also a winner-takes-all State. Senator Ted Cruz, the main challenger of Trump, holds steady at No: 2 in the other three States.
Some pundits believe that Trump’s increasingly confrontational stance vis-à-vis protesters at his rallies could affect his performance, whereas some others think it could really bolster his showing. At one or two centres, Trump has egged on his supporters to punch a protester in the face and offered to bear the legal expenses the action may lead to.
Writing that the violent outbursts at his rallies have brought the presidential race to a crossroads, The Wall Street Journal noted that Republican voters could decide “whether to embrace the front-runner’s confrontational style or turn to a more traditional standard-bearer”.
Both the Democratic presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have also come down hard on Trump. Stating that Trump all Americans should be concerned with Trump’s “cynical campaign”, Clinton said: “He is trafficking in hate and fear. He is playing to our worst instincts rather than our angels of our better nature.”
Trump, in media interviews, has said that he does not condone violence, yet making it clear that he will not take responsibility for what happens to protesters at his rallies.
The brash billionaire is also not backing down on his sharp anti-Muslim rhetoric. When a Fox News Sunday anchor put it to him that not more than 1,00,000 of world’s 1.65 billion Muslims might be associated with jihadist causes, Trump cited a Pew poll to say the number of militant Muslims could be as high as 27 per cent.
According to an Associated Press delegate count of the overall Republican race thus far, Trump leads with 460 delegates, followed by Cruz (370), Rubio (163) and Kasich (63). To clinch the Republican nomination, one needs 1,237 delegates.