Fox News and the Associated Press are projecting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) the winner of the Minnesota Republican presidential caucuses.
The win was critical for the Rubio, who hadn’t won a single other contest on Tuesday. By 11 p.m. ET, Trump had racked up six Super Tuesday wins, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) winning two states.
The only Midwestern Super Tuesday state was slated to be a wild card for the Republican field. According to TPM’s PollTracker Average, Trump is still polling with a more than 20 point lead nationally but had very few resources in the state.
Minnesota was projected as one of Rubio’s best chances for a Super Tuesday win, an important benchmark for his campaign to stay competitive in the race for the nomination.
MARCOMENTUM!!!
Go Marco go! You can be President too!
The Tyrell Corporation must be very pleased.
Hey, the Rube wins one! Mazel Tov Asshole. You get a cookie! But if you give a mouse a cookie…
On the brighter side, tRump came in 3rd there. Watch him say “How stupid are the people of Minnesota”, just like he did with Iowa.
My read of the landscape is that this night was the worst possible thing that could happen to the Republican party. I’m operating on the assumption that a Trump nomination would be disastrous. What they needed was a strong showing from Rubio to keep him nipping at Trump’s heels heading into the winner-take-all states. I think Cruz’s ego is going to take him down with his ship, but even if he doesn’t drop out a bad drubbing for him tonight might drive a number of his voters to Rubio.
Instead Rubio has a bad night, Cruz does better than expected and doubles down on himself as the only possible anti-Trump. Rubio isn’t going anywhere before his home state votes at least (and he finally won a state) and even Kasich puts in a strong second in Vermont, and he’s not going anywhere before Ohio. Rubio puts in a lot of bad 3rd place beatings, including missing the 20% threshold in Texas and other states to pick up any delegates there.
Cruz and Rubio limp on, trying to pretend that Trump isn’t kicking their asses, which just makes his job easier.
Its all over the place for the Republicans. Hell, Kasich might win Vermont. That means they’ll all be staying in the race for many more weeks now, only adding to their confusion and lack of coalescing around a single strong candidate. tRump may think he’s the one to coalesce around but the establishment Republicans are having none of it unless they can convince themselves they can make him malleable to their wishes. I doubt they’ll come to terms with what a loose cannon they will have on their hands going forward.