By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Tuesday, March 8, Republican voters in Michigan and Mississippi went to the polls and gave New York City businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump crushing victories over his remaining GOP Primary opponents. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz did manage to score one victory in the Idaho Caucuses.
Donald Trump said, “I have never endured so much horrible horrible things about me in a week. $38 million of negative things have been said about me…It shows you how brilliant the public is. They knew they were all lies…I want to thank the people of Michigan. I want to thank the people of Mississippi… One thing I was so happy about is that the turnout has been just incredible. Millions and millions of people have come out on the Republican side and the Democrats are down 30 percent. I think it is the biggest story in politics today. We have had people coming over here that have never voted for Republicans before.”
Trump said that it is important for Republicans to re-elect Republican Senators and Congressmen. “We will have a great team. Paul Ryan called and was very cordial. I have great respect for Paul Ryan. Let’s come together. I am a unifier.”
Donald Trump attacked both Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and said, “Ted Cruz is interesting because he keeps saying he is the only one who can beat me, but he never beats me. Ted is going to have a hard time. We get to New York we are going to do great. We get to New Jersey we are going to do great.”
Trump said, “Mitt Romney got up and gave a speech this week. He is a very nice man. He shouldn’t have said what he did. Mitt was very vicious. If he had shown that much energy against Barack Obama I think he would have won.”
Trump said, “This shows that advertising is not as important as competence. Everyone who has attacked me has gone down. Trump referred to Ted Cruz as “Lyin Ted. Little Marco helped me a lot because he called Ted a liar. You will never win with professional politicians. They won’t take you to the promised land. They are controlled by the special interests. They are controlled by the people that put up the money for them to run. Marco got very hostile two weeks ago. It doesn’t work for him. Hostility doesn’t work for everyone. Marco would have done better if he had kept up with the pattern that he was doing before.”
Trump promised we are going to have borders and we are going to build the wall.
Trump said that he is winning with evangelicals because, “I am a very good Christian. They are chipping away at Christianity. That’s not going to happen anymore.”
Trump said that right now he is focused on winning the nomination. “Then I am going to beat Hillary Clinton and I am going to beat her badly. If she is allowed to run. If the government is going to do it’s job properly she will not be allowed to run.”
Like in Alabama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) crushed US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) in the Mississippi Primary. Michigan was a much different story, with Sanders pulling out a narrow victory.
Sen. Sanders said, “The corporate media counted us out. The pollsters said we were way behind. The Clinton super PACs spent millions against us across the country. We were hit with a dishonest attack in the debate. But we won, again… and if we continue to stand together, we can win this nomination.”
In Michigan Trump had 36.7 percent of the vote. He was followed by Senator Ted Cruz with 24.8 percent of the vote. Ohio Governor John Kasich finished third with 24.3 percent of GOP voters. Sen. Marco Rubio finished with just 9.1 percent.
Mississippi closely paralleled Alabama. Donald Trump won an incredible 47.5 percent. Ted Cruz did even better in Mississippi than he did in Alabama garnering 36.4 percent, but is it too little, too late? John Kasich was third with 8.7 percent. Sen. Rubio finished fourth with just 5 percent.
In Idaho Cruz won with 43.5 percent of the vote. Trump was a distant second with just 28.5 percent followed by Rubio at 16.5 percent. Kasich had just 7.2 percent.
As of press time CNN estimated that Donald Trump had 447 delegates; Ted Cruz had 346; Marco Rubio had 154; and John Kasich just 53. It takes 1237 to win.
On Monday “Let the People Speak” a national grass roots effort to rally the Republican Party’s base, will hold their inaugural Press Conference in the Alabama Statehouse.
National Spokesman for the group, former Republican State Representative Perry O Hooper Jr said in a statement, “The race for who wins the Republican nomination should be decided by the voters, not by a handful of party elitists.”
Hooper will be joined by Trump supporting Republican State Representatives: Jim Carnes, Ed Henry, Tim Wadsworth, and Barry Moore as they voice their concerns concerning recent developments in the nominating process.
(Original reporting by CNN and Fox News contributed to this report)
