06/03/2016

SuperSaturday:Trump,CruzscoredoublevictoriesCNNPolitics.com

Super Saturday: Trump, Cruz score double

victories
By Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 0628 GMT (1428 HKT) March 6, 2016

Story highlights
Trump wins Kentucky GOP caucuses, CNN
projects
Republicans are battling for 155 delegates on
Super Saturday
Democrats have 109 pledged delegates at
stake

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump and Ted Cruz

claimed two Super Saturday victories each while
Democrat Bernie Sanders also scored a pair of moraleboosting wins and Hillary Clinton won one state.
The campaign now moves to Michigan, which holds its
primary on Tuesday along with races in three other
states. But the wins by Trump and Cruz on Saturday
guarantee they will continue their battle for the
Republican nomination at least through March 15,
when major states including Florida and Ohio go to the
polls.

"I have been in competitions all of my life," Trump said

in a press conference at Trump International Golf
Course in West Palm Beach, Florida. "There is nothing so exciting as this stuff."
Sanders won Kansas and Nebraska while Clinton won the night's big prize: delegate-rich Louisiana. They
will face off Sunday night at CNN's Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan.
On the Republican side, Trump won Louisiana and Kentucky while Cruz won Kansas and Maine.
The Texas senator's strong night represents a rebound from Super Tuesday contests last week, when his
hoped-for lock on Southern, conservative states failed to materialize and cast doubts on the resilience of his
appeal to Republican voters. It also validates a growing theme that he performs best in races with closed
primaries and caucuses, contests in which only registered Republicans can participate.
"God bless Kansas. And God bless Maine," Cruz said, and argued that his performance on Saturday
represented an important pivot point in the GOP race. "What we are seeing is Kansas is a manifestation of a
real shift in momentum."
Trump lobbed criticism at his GOP rivals. He said
Rubio had a "very, very bad night" and called on him
to drop out of the race. And he took at shot at Cruz,
after spending months saying the Texas senator is
ineligible to run for President because he was born in
Canada.
"He should do well in Maine because it is very close
to Canada," Trump said.

Tough night for Rubio

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/05/politics/kansaskentuckylouisianamainenebraskahighlights/index.html

1/4

06/03/2016

SuperSaturday:Trump,CruzscoredoublevictoriesCNNPolitics.com

It was another grim night for Rubio, who has so far

won only one of the 19 contests in the GOP race,
despite billing himself as the only candidate with the
potential to unify the Republican Party and the broad appeal needed to beat Clinton.

7 photos: Who's running for president?

While Kansas and Maine may represent too small a sample to validate Cruz's claims that the race is now a
two-man affair, it is clear that his win will be parsed for signs that it represents the stirrings of a backlash
against Trump, after the billionaire became embroiled in a controversy he was slow to repudiate the Ku Klux
Klan, and introduced a vulgar note into a Republican debate on Thursday night.

On the other hand, the victory by Cruz in Kansas appears to fit squarely into historical precedent. Like Cruz,
the previous two victors of that state's GOP contests, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008,
had strong appeal among evangelicals which they had also demonstrated by winning the Iowa caucuses.
Neither went on to win the nomination.
And despite his win Saturday in Maine and on Tuesday in Alaska, there are still doubts about whether Cruz
can expand his appeal beyond hard-core conservatives in a national race.
Super Saturday voting took place in the wake of former Republican nominee Mitt Romney's assault on
Trump, which ignited a civil war within the GOP between establishment figures and the billionaire's army of
angry 'outsider' voters.

Democratic race
Sanders' wins in the Kansas and Nebraska both caucus states could offer him a boost after he was
overshadowed by Clinton on Super Tuesday. But they also appear to underline that Sanders is stronger
among largely white, less diverse electorates. That is a problem for Sanders because the nomination could
be decided by the large numbers of minority voters in the Democratic coalition, to which Clinton has
demonstrated she has more appeal.
Clinton's campaign also worked in both states to narrow the margin of her defeat, learning the lessons from
the 2008 campaign when Barack Obama piled up large delegate counts in caucus states. The manageable
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/05/politics/kansaskentuckylouisianamainenebraskahighlights/index.html

2/4

06/03/2016

SuperSaturday:Trump,CruzscoredoublevictoriesCNNPolitics.com

size of her defeats in the two states and her big win in Louisiana will mean that she will likely end the night
slightly further ahead of Sanders in the overall delegate count than when she started it.
The Super Saturday contests offer a chance for the two front-runners to quicken their momentum after they
both came out of the contests last Tuesday with solid delegate leads. They still face major battles in crucial
elections in Michigan, Ohio and Florida over the coming weeks.
Clinton has a lead of about 200 pledged delegates over Sanders, while Trump leads Cruz by around 100
delegates and is about 200 delegates ahead of the third place candidate Rubio.
Rubio put on a brave face, saying that the states being contested on Super Saturday favored other
candidates, but predicted that his fortunes would soon change. He predicted victory in his home state of
Florida on March 15.
"The map only gets friendlier for us after tonight," Rubio told reporters during a trip to Puerto Rico, which
holds a Republican primary on Sunday. "There will be more delegates awarded in Florida than basically
every state that voted tonight combined."
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty and Mary Rose Fox contributed to this report

The most memorable insults and one-liners from

the GOP debate
Hillary Clinton revels in Donald Trump-Marco Rubio feud

Obama says he's not leaving D.C. next year

CNN/ORC poll: Americans oppose plan to close

Guantanamo Bay prison

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/05/politics/kansaskentuckylouisianamainenebraskahighlights/index.html

3/4

06/03/2016

SuperSaturday:Trump,CruzscoredoublevictoriesCNNPolitics.com

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/05/politics/kansaskentuckylouisianamainenebraskahighlights/index.html

4/4