Is The Cruz campaign over? Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch seems to think so.
Rupert Murdoch, the creator of Fox News and chairman of News Corporation – its parent company – took to Twitter last Friday to predict the possible long-term ramifications of the Saturday’s two primary elections.
Rupert Murdoch in the Republican South Carolina Primary
Murdoch made two predictions regarding the Republican primary in South Carolina – both of them grim for Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz.
“If Trump beats Cruz by ten plus or Rubio runs 2nd it’s over for Cruz,” he wrote.
As it turns out Cruz lost on both counts, with Trump leading him by 10.2 percentage points and Marco Rubio edging him to third place picking up 165,881 votes to Cruz’s 164,790 (roughly 0.2 percent of the vote).
There may be some truth to Murdoch’s prediction according to a Sunday article by The New York Times. Noting that “establishment Republicans” were grappling with Trump’s sweeping victory in South Carolina, The Times reported that with Tuesday’s Nevada caucuses looming and Super Tuesday a week later: “there was pressure on some of the party’s most prominent figures to declare their support for Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — who finished second in South Carolina on Saturday — or at least to help rally people behind him as the most viable alternative to Mr. Trump.”
There are a couple of potential endorsements that might prove critical for Rubio to vault ahead of Trump – those of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. Rumors of a Romney endorsement have been flooding the media this week, and Rubio’s allies believe it to be imminent – but on Sunday Rubio dismissed those rumors as premature.
Bush’s endorsement could prove important to fundraising efforts by Rubio, but “Mr. Bush’s backing will most likely be tougher to secure,” reports The New York Times, adding “He and Mr. Rubio clashed heatedly over the last few weeks of the campaign, and Mr. Bush was plainly wounded by the experience of being upstaged by a candidate who was once his protégé.”
Clearly courting Bush’s support, Rubio heaped praises on Bush on Saturday calling him a visionary and a good man, adding that they had never come to blows during the campaign.
For his part, Cruz is reminding Republicans that he is the only candidate to beat Trump so far, earlier this month in Iowa.
During a Sunday interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Cruz told George Stephanopoulos: “If we want to beat Trump, Cruz is the only one who can do it. He’s the only one who has done it.”
Rupert Murdoch on the Nevada Democratic Caucus
He also predicted that it would be “curtains” for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton were she to lose the Nevada caucus to rival Bernie Sanders. As it turns out, Clinton handily beat Sanders by roughly 6 percent of the vote.
As The New York Times reported, “Buoyed by the support of minority voters and enthusiastic workers in the city’s big casinos, Hillary Clinton defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, thwarting his momentum and proving to an anxious Democratic Party that she can assemble a broad coalition to carry her to the general election.”
Tomorrow's polls. If Trump beats Cruz by ten plus or Rubio runs 2nd it's over for Cruz. And if Sanders beats Hilary in Nev curtains for her.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) February 20, 2016
- Source Links – August 29, 2020
- About Pat Warde: Eulogy Tribute by Eleanor Hughes – April 1, 2019
- Editorial Note – January 15, 2019
You must be logged in to post a comment Login