By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Tuesday, March 1, the people of Alabama went to the polls to pick the next President of the United States and overwhelmingly Republican voters they selected New York City billionaire and reality TV star Donald Trump by a wide margin.
Donald Trump more than doubled his closest rival. Trump had a shocking 42.8 percent of the vote in a five person field. US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) only received 21.2 percent. US Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) with 18.5 percent of the vote (at press time) failed to break the twenty percent threshold to receive delegates from Alabama at the convention under Alabama Republican Party rules. Dr. Ben Carson got just 10.7 percent of the vote. Ohio Governor John Kasich was endorsed by Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R), but that translated into only 4.39 percent of the votes cast.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R) had endorsed Trump on Sunday, saying that Trump would make America great again.
Trump told a crowd of 30,000 people in Madison that he would build a wall between the United States and Mexico; reform the libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists, make all the illegal aliens return to their own countries, renounce bad trade deals, impose a 35 percent tariff on goods from nations where we have a trade deficit, rebuild the American military, and make America proud of it’s President.
The three biggest political rallies in Alabama this year were: Donald Trump in Mobile, Donald Trump in Madison, and Donald Trump in Birmingham. Donald Trump’s Mobile rally last summer was the biggest by any candidate in this election to this point. On Tuesday, Alabama helped vault Trump toward his goal of being the next President of the United States.
On Super Tuesday, Cruz won Texas (his home state) and neighboring Oklahoma as well as Alaska. Rubio won the Minnesota GOP Caucuses. Trump carried Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Vermont. Previously Trump won New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Cruz had won the Iowa Caucus. Second place finishes in New Hampshire and Vermont have been Governor Kasich’s best performances to this point.
While the Republican electorate appears to be coalescing behind Donald Trump, many party leaders remain hostile towards his candidacy.
