HOUSTON — The GOP presidential candidates barreled into the final stretch to Super Tuesday after a name-calling, insult-trading, finger-pointing final debate in which Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz engaged in a tag-team attack intended to take down front-runner Donald Trump before it’s too late.
“I’ve dealt with tougher,” Trump sniffed after taking incoming for two-plus hours Thursday night. He said he knew the attacks were coming because “they’re desperate. They’re losing by massive amounts.”
Rubio kept up the pressure Friday morning, using an appearance on national television to declare that “Donald Trump is a con artist. He is wholly unprepared to be president of the United States.”
Eleven states vote in Tuesday’s mega-round of voting, with 595 delegates at stake. Trump, with three straight victories behind him, has the momentum, and his rivals know they have to change that dynamic to have any hope of derailing his streamroll toward the nomination.
It was far from clear, though, that the two senators did much to solve their basic conundrum — each struggling to emerge as the clear alternative to the front-runner as non-Trump voters continue to splinter their support among the alternatives.
From Houston, the GOP candidates spread out in the hunt for Super Tuesday votes, with Cruz headed for Tennessee and Virginia on Friday. Both Trump and Rubio are signaling they’re unwilling to cede Texas, the crown jewel of Super Tuesday, to the home state senator, Cruz. Each scheduled campaign events in Texas before heading to Oklahoma City.
Up until Thursday, Rubio and Cruz had shown little willingness to take on Trump when the national spotlight shines the brightest. That all changed in Houston.
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