The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump’s big night only impeded by Kasich
Rivals split 2 big winner-take-all states; Rubio out.
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump routed Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida on Tuesday, driving him from the Republican presidential race, and easily won the primaries in Illinois and North Carolina, amassing a formidable delegate advantage that will be exceedingly difficult for any rival to overcome.
But with a victory in Ohio, his home state, Gov. John Kasich denied Trump one of the night’s biggest prizes and made it considerably harder for him to clinch the nomination outright before primary voting ends in June.
Trump struck a defiant note in his primary night address. He has faced mounting criticism from Republicans for the vitriolic tone of his candidacy, but on Tuesday he described himself proudly as a candidate of the angry and disaffected.
“There is great anger,” Trump said. “Believe me, there is great anger.”
Kasich must now strain for a larger role in a Republican contest in which he has largely competed in obscurity. In his Tuesday night speech, he did not take on Trump by name, but said he would carry his own message of uplift “all the way to Cleveland,” where the Republican convention will take place in July.
“It’s been my intention to make you proud,” Kasich told a roaring crowd in Berea, Ohio, adding a favorite line: “I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.”
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas appeared to be running second in Illinois and North Carolina and was locked in a close race with Trump in Missouri, ensuring that he would earn a substantial number of delegates by the end of the night.
Trump remains the dominant figure in the race, however: His performance in Florida earned him 99 delegates and made a resounding statement about the appeal of his hard-edged populism in the country’s most sought-after swing state.
Rubio, addressing supporters in Miami, acknowledged that his campaign had been overwhelmed by an angry mood in the Republican electorate. In detached and clinical language, he said it had been impossible to repel the long-term political forces powering Trump.
“America’s in the middle of a real political storm — a real tsunami,” he said. “And we should have seen this coming.”
Despite his triumph over Rubio, Trump was thwarted in his efforts to drive a second mainstream Republican rival from the race. Kasich’s victory in Ohio dealt Trump a stinging blow, preventing him from claiming the state’s 66 delegates and significantly increasing the chances that the Republican race will not be decided until the party’s convention in July.
It was the latest twist in an extraordinary campaign. Just three weeks ago, Republican leaders were complaining that Kasich, who until Tuesday had not won a single state, was ensuring Trump’s nomination by remaining in the race. Now, he has revived hopes on the right that Trump can be stopped.
Kasich’s victory in Ohio also shined a light on a nagging difficulty for Trump, and one of the Republican race’s most revealing divides: the class fault line. While Trump won among voters who earn less than $50,000 a year, Kasich overwhelmed him by more 30 percentage points among Ohioans who make more than $100,000.
But Kasich remains far behind Trump and Cruz in the delegate battle, and he has not come close to winning outside a small handful of states.
Trump’s performance in North Carolina was a reminder of his enduring strength in the South, but he was likely to take only a handful more delegates from the state than Cruz, who finished second, be- cause North Carolina allocates its 72 delegates on a proportional basis.
Tuesday opened a new phase in the Republican race, with states now permitted to award all their delegates to the top votegetter. Even more significant, more than half the states and territories have now voted, and the prospects of halting Trump’s campaign are waning.
In a scenario that once would have been unthinkable for mainstream Republicans, they are now largely relying on Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who made his name vilifying party leaders, to slow Trump’s march to the 1,237 delegates he needs and even have a chance to wrest the nomination from him in Cleveland.
National Republican leaders had held out hope that Rubio could mount a comeback in Florida and challenge Trump for the nomination. But Rubio’s loss extinguished that possibility and left a multi-ballot convention fight this summer as mainstream Republicans’ last avenue to block Trump with a more palatable alternative.