By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Saturday, February 20, the voters of South Carolina went to the polls and said they wanted Donald Trump to be their President. The New York City businessman and reality TV star bested his closest rival, US Senator Marco Rubio by eleven percentage points.
Trump said that running for President of the United States was tough, nasty, mean, but beautiful, when you win.
Sen. Rubio (R-Florida) beat Senate colleague Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by just 1,091 votes but the second place finish is Rubio’s best performance to date. Trump collects all forty four South Carolina delegates that were in play. Cruz, Rubio, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Dr. Ben Carson all move forward but received no delegates for their efforts.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R) dropped out of the race after his disappointing fourth place finish. “I’m proud of the campaign that we have run to unify our country. But the people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken, and I really respect their decision. So tonight I am suspending my campaign.” Bush and the super PAC allied with him raised and spent over $150 million, but was running out of money down the stretch, it never translated into votes.
Sen. Cruz just narrowly lost to Rubio; but the disappointing finish in a southern state does not bode well for Cruz’s chances in the rapidly approaching SEC Primary where Trump appears to be leading in many of the demographics that he had hoped to win including the Tea Party and evangelicals.
Sen. Rubio is trying to distance himself from Cruz and consolidate the anti-Trump vote. Rubio wrote on Sunday, “Conservatives want an optimistic nominee with a vision for the 21st Century. They want someone who can speak to all Americans, of all walks of life. They want a candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton. I’m going to be that candidate. But this race is very far from over — it’s down to a three-man race, but we have a lot of work to do. Last night in South Carolina, I talked about the stakes of this election: We cannot afford another eight years of failure. We need our generation to step up and assume the mantle of leadership. We know how to do this: When America was weakened just over a generation ago, Ronald Reagan led us back to the principles that made our country the freest and most prosperous in the world. Now, the children of the Reagan Revolution are ready to lead. The conservative movement today is one where a son of a bartender and a maid can be on the road to being president of the United States, where a daughter of Indian immigrants has helped South Carolina prosper like never before, where a South Carolinian who grew up in working poverty can become the first African-American senator from the South in more than a century.”
The GOP campaign goes to Nevada for their Republican Caucus on Tuesday, February 23. The candidates will debate on Thursday, February 26. The election then comes to Alabama and a number of other states on Tuesday, March 1.
