Trump wins in Nevada

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump calls climate change a
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump calls climate change a

Get to know the other candidates in the running with these DN candidate guides:

All candidates

Republican candidates:

Marco Rubio

Ted Cruz

Donald Trump

Ben Carson

Democratic candidates:

Hillary Clinton

Bernie Sanders


See the Daily News cheat sheet to the primaries. 

With victories now under his belt in the West, the South and Northeast, a gleeful Trump was oozing even more confidence than usual Tuesday night that the GOP nomination is within reach.

"It's going to be an amazing two months," he told a raucous crowd at a Las Vegas casino. "We might not even need the two months, folks, to be honest."

Trump's rivals know they are running out of time to stop his juggernaut.

Rubio edged out Cruz by fewer than 2,000 votes, according to The Associated Press vote count.

Appearing Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show, Rubio said the majority of Republicans don't want Trump to be their nominee for president. "The sooner we can get this race narrowed, I think the easier it's going to be to stop Donald Trump, he said.

After finishing third in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and second in South Carolina and Nevada, Rubio needs a win soon to support the idea he can beat Trump.

Cruz, for his part, skipped right past Nevada's underwhelming verdict for him in his caucus-night speech and pinned his hopes on the big round of voting that's coming up next, saying: "One week from today will be the most important night of this campaign: Super Tuesday."

The candidates were fanning out to their next targets of opportunity as the lights went out in Las Vegas: Trump was campaigning Wednesday in Virginia, then on to Texas and Oklahoma. Rubio and Cruz both headed for Texas.

The election calendar suggests that if Trump's rivals don't slow him by mid-March, they may not ever.

Trump won 14 delegates in Nevada, while Rubio won seven and Cruz got six. John Kasich and Ben Carson each got one, with one delegate left to be allocated.

Overall, Trump has 81 delegates, and Cruz and Rubio have 17 apiece. Kasich has six delegates and Carson has four. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.

Trump, in his victory speech, took on the notion advanced by both Rubio and Cruz that if more GOP candidates drop out of the race, they'll coalesce around an alternative.

"They keep forgetting that when people drop out, we're going to get a lot of votes," he said.

Lagging far behind in the Nevada vote were Kasich and Carson.

Comments

More from The Daily






This Week's Digital Issue


Loading Recent Classifieds...