With almost all the votes counted on Super Tuesday, Cruz finished with 2.5 million votes, compared to Rubio's 1.9 million and Trump's 2.9 million. Cruz bettered Rubio by 600,000 votes, which makes him the candidate around which other Republicans opposed to Trump need to coalesce. The latest polls before Super Tuesday indicated that Texas would be a close race between Cruz and Trump, yet Cruz ended up crushing Trump by 17 percentage points and nearly half a million votes. Trump was expected to beat Cruz in Oklahoma, so the latest polls told us. Yet Cruz defeated Trump decisively there. He also won the small-population state of Alaska.
What of Rubio? He did better in Virginia than polls predicted but still finished second to Trump. He won one primary, Minnesota, beating Cruz by only 8,000 votes. He did overtake Cruz for second place in Georgia but only by less than one percent. He finished a distant third to Trump and Kasich in tiny Vermont and third to the same pair in Massachusetts. Cruz finished ahead of Rubio everywhere else, with second place finishes in Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee, in addition to his three victories.
In the latest Florida poll (Feb. 26) Trump was leading Rubio in his home state of Florida by 20 percentage points. If Rubio cannot carry even his own home state, and that by a wide margin (as Cruz crushed Trump in his own home state), he stands no chance of beating Trump. It is time to face the math. It is time for Rubio supporters to come around to Ted Cruz as the only candidate left who both respects our values and can beat Trump. Let's put our differences aside and make this a two-person race, before it is too late.
In the latest polling for head-to-head races with Hillary Clinton (the almost certain Democratic nominee, given the results of Super Tuesday), Cruz edges out Clinton while Trump loses decisively to Clinton. The only Republican with higher unfavorability ratings than Hillary Clinton is Donald Trump (58%).
Trump will destroy first the Republican Party and then, with a likely Democratic victory, the nation. It's now or never. Let all who recognize the train wreck that is Donald Trump unite. Cruz is not perfect. He's not the Messiah (that role is already taken). But he has the brains, the conviction, and the guts to lead our nation in the direction that we want it to go and that the country needs it to go.
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