Donald Trump destroyed his rivals in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday, with his third consecutive victory and oodles of momentum going into Super Tuesday next week as the most visible candidate for voters in a dozen states. According to the latest count, Trump took 46.1% of the Nevada Republican vote, Rubio 24.4%, and Cruz 19.8.
Associated Press announced Trump’s decisive win immediately after the polls had closed. His victory is seen as the expression of voter rage, as media entrance polls showed that 57% of the caucus-participants said they were “angry” with the federal government. That’s a lot of rage, and Trump seems to channel it better than anyone else so far.
Jewish Casino magnate Steve Wynn, speaking to Fox News from the Treasure Island hotel and resort in Las Vegas, said, “People are taking to him, they’re morphing with this man. First, I don’t think everybody took him so seriously. Now, we have a situation where Trump looks most likely [to be] the nominee for the Republican party. There is so much riding on this election. I think everybody is going to want to make sure we get a Republican president and Republican Senate and the House.”
“I think trump looks like it’s his to lose,” Wynn reiterated.
The Trump victory is yet to endear the Manhattan billionaire to the GOP leadership, as Slate Magazine’s Jamelle Bouie noted on Monday: “Now that Jeb Bush has left the contest, everyone in the race is more focused on someone other than Trump. It’s as if the GOP’s traditional candidates are in denial about the state of the party’s primary, as though they don’t believe that Trump could win the nomination outright. It’s the same mistake that Republicans made throughout 2015, when Trump gained steam and GOP elites refused to confront him.”
The fact is, the GOP may still not believe the numbers, and continue scheming for a candidate who would somehow, using guile and insider help, show up at some point in the race, or even at the convention, and rob Trump of his victory. All this bizarre, Titanic-deck confidence is sure to evaporate come Super Tuesday next week, should Trump’s decisive winning persist. And at this point no one sees him doing anything but keep on winning.
In his victory speech, which was Trump-rumbled as usual, the candidate noted his win came in a state with a very high percentage of Hispanics. He is right, of course, and at this rate he would sweep Puerto Rico, too. Here are a few paragraphs from last night’s speech. For the full text visit here.
“Now that I got that over with. You know it’s always tough. And then tomorrow boom, boom. But that’s the way it is. And really you have some real talent. We have some real talent in the Republican Party and the RNC and (inaudible). We want to thank everybody. Thank you very much. …
“I — first of all, congratulations to Bernie. In all fairness we have to congratulate him. We may not like it. But I heard parts of Bernie’s speech. He wants to give away our country, folks. He wants to give away — we’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to let it happen. I don’t know where it’s going with Bernie. We wish him a lot of luck.
“But we are going to make America great again. But we’re going to do it the old-fashioned way. We’re going to beat China, Japan. We’re going to beat Mexico at trade. We’re going to beat all of these countries that are taking so much of our money away from us on a daily basis. It’s not going to happen anymore. We have the greatest businesspeople right now in the world. They call me all the time. They want to be involved. We have political hacks negotiating our deals for billions and billions and billions of dollars. Not going to happen anymore. We’re going to use the finest businesspeople in the world. We are going to something so good and so fast and so strong. And the world is going to respect us again. Believe me. …”