‘Polish workers’ spike in Google search after Rubio spars with Trump over immigration
When the topic of immigration was brought to Thursday night’s debate stage, Donald Trump took credit for its discussion.
Marco Rubio rebutted.
“If you’re going to claim that you’re the only one that lifted this issue into the campaign, then you acknowledge that, for example, you’re the only person on this stage that’s ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally,” Rubio said.
Rubio then told the audience to fact-check that statement.
“He hired workers from Poland and he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgement.... Go online and Google it. ‘Donald Trump, Polish workers.’ You’ll see it.”
And Google it they did. “Polish workers” spiked in Google search by 300%.
Rubio was referencing a lawsuit from 1983 that involved 200 undocumented Polish immigrants who were employed at the Trump Tower construction site.
Bernie Sanders in Chicago: We need a ‘political revolution’ against wealthy status quo
Bernie Sanders brought his Democratic presidential campaign to Chicago on Thursday night, making a populist pitch to the young, working-class and minority voters to join him in a “political revolution” against wealthy backers of the status quo.
The senator from Vermont, vying for the nomination against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spoke to several thousand people at Chicago State University, questioning the priorities of a gridlocked state government that has left the college in financial trouble.
Marco Rubio was ready to fight and other takeaways from the debate
A slimmer field of Republican candidates — just five remain — took the stage Thursday night for their 10th debate and last face-to-face session before Super Tuesday, when close to half the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination are up for grabs. It was a loud and raucous affair. With the stage lights in Houston still bright, here are our takeaways.
Marco Rubio insulted Trump, then tried to raise money off of it
Marco Rubio began selling smashed Rolexes, sort of, on his campaign website for $10 on Thursday to echo an attack he made during the night’s GOP debate about front-runner Donald Trump.
“If Donald Trump hadn’t inherited $200 million, he’d be selling watches like these in Manhattan,” Rubio said.
His campaign’s fundraising website cited that quote with an offer to sell a gold watch with a smashed glass lens. But the promotion came with a caveat:
“NOTE: You won’t actually get a broken Trump watch, but your $10 donation will help Marco stop him.”
Real winner of GOP debate was Carson’s ‘fruit salad’
When asked how he would choose a Supreme Court nominee, Ben Carson gave an answer that was a head-scratcher.
“The fruit salad of their life is what I will look at,” Carson said.
Predictably, Twitter went bananas.
Candidates make their final pitches to national audience ahead of Super Tuesday
The five remaining Republican presidential candidates closed the combative debate Thursday night with succinct summations of their case to voters who will cast decisive votes across a huge swath of the nation next week on Super Tuesday.
“Nobody knows politicians better than I do,” Donald Trump said at the end of the CNN debate in Houston. “They’re all talk; they’re no action. Nothing gets done.”
Trump mentioned his tough posture on trade and his vows to build up the military and improve the treatment of veterans. “I will get it done,” he said. “Politicians will never get it done.”
Marco Rubio, whose relentless attacks on Trump in the debate reflected his dire need to defeat the New York billionaire in some of the contests next week, urged voters to “bring an end to the silliness, this looniness.”
“The votes are starting to count,” said Rubio, the senator from Florida. “And we have an incredible decision to make, not just about the direction of America, but the identity of our party and of the conservative movement. The time for games is over.”
Ted Cruz raced through a list of top priorities, including his pledge to order the Justice Department to investigate Planned Parenthood and prosecute the group for any criminal violations.
“There’s several deal makers on this stage, but there’s only one person who has consistently stood up to both parties, fighting for the American people against the Washington deals,” said the senator from Texas.
John Kasich portrayed himself as the strongest opponent to take on Democrat Hillary Clinton in November, citing his record as governor of Ohio and a member of Congress with experience in foreign policy, cutting taxes and promotion of economic growth.
“We won’t have to spend time figuring out what we’re going to do,” he said. “I will hit the ground running.”
Ben Carson contrasted his calm demeanor with the pugnaciousness of Trump, though not by name. “What kind of person do you want your kids to emulate?” he asked.
Trump declares victory in debate
GOP front-runner Donald Trump declared victory in Thursday’s debate, saying he was the subject of attacks by Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz because they are flailing in their pursuit of the nomination.
“They were coming,” Trump told CNN immediately after the debate in Houston. “They’re doing very badly in the polls. ... They are desperate. They are losing by massive amounts.”
Trump said the Houston clash was among his best debates.
“I’ve dealt with tough people in the world over my lifetime,” Trump said. Voters “see I’m the guy who can handle people.”
Trump focused on Rubio, who for the first time went after the GOP front-runner.
“He’s a choke artist. He chokes,” Trump said. “It looked like he just came out of a swimming pool. He was soaking wet.”
And Trump called out 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, saying that when Romney called on Trump to release his tax returns, he was merely trying to remain “relevant.”
Later, speaking to reporters in the debate hall, Trump stressed that he has been “constantly audited by the IRS” noting that “I have friends that are very rich and are never audited.”
He called Thursday “one of my better debate nights” and belittled Cruz’s and Rubio’s performances.
“This was a great evening for me,” Trump said.
9:13 p.m.: This post was updated with Trump’s comments to reporters after the debate.
Most tweeted moments during GOP debate? Trump’s exchanges with Cruz and Rubio
According to Twitter, Donald Trump’s heated exchanges with rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were the most tweeted moments from Thursday night’s debate.
Cruz: Having Donald Trump in the race has been like ‘going to the circus’
Ted Cruz suggested that it’s Donald Trump’s presidential run, not his own teetering campaign, that may be showing signs of wear after Thursday’s debate.
“This has been fun with Donald in the race; it has been entertaining,” Cruz said in an interview with CNN immediately after the forum.
“It’s like going to the circus: You have acrobats and clowns and dancing bears. But the stakes are serious.”
“Donald Trump, if he’s our nominee ... he loses to Hillary Clinton,” Cruz predicted.
Cruz and fellow Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have tried to claim they are best-positioned to take on Trump, and on Thursday they both went after him.
Cruz offered slight praise for Rubio’s decision to join him in the ring.
“He did something tonight he’s never done; he actually took on Donald Trump,” Cruz said. “That should have happened earlier.”
Cruz’s campaign sputtered this week after his disappointing showing in South Carolina, a gateway to the Southern states that will be among those voting on Tuesday.
The Texas senator has made the Southern states a top priority in his appeal to religious and conservative voters, and he a solid showing to propel his campaign forward.
“We’re going to have a very strong Super Tuesday,” Cruz promised.
He noted new polling that has him ahead of Trump in his home state, while Rubio trails the billionaire in Florida.
“If you can’t win your home state, that’s a problem,” Cruz said.
Marco Rubio shifts on Apple, seeking compliance in terrorism investigation
Marco Rubio has shifted his views on Apple, saying the tech giant should comply with a court order to enable federal investigators try to crack the password on a San Bernardino terrorism suspect’s iPhone.
“They should comply with that,” Rubio said Thursday. “Apple doesn’t want to do it because they think it hurts their brand. Well, let me tell you: Their brand is not superior to the national security of the United States.”
Rubio had previously said the issue was complicated. But he said new information now shows that what investigators are seeking would not create a “back door” that could compromise phone security. Instead, investigators want to Apple to disable a function that would wipe out the phone’s contents after multiple guesses at the password.
He but now aligns with Ted Cruz on the issue.
“He’s now agreeing with me -- so I’m glad,” Cruz said.
Candidates’ closing statements, in summary
Raw hostility during Thursday’s GOP debate
Thursday’s Republican debate showed newly raw hostility between the three top contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, with anger erupting as they argued over campaign ethics.
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump sparred about their campaign tactics before Trump argued that he knew politicians better than career politicians did.
Cruz responded that he believed the businessman, because “for 40 years, you’ve been funding liberal politicians.”
Trump noted that he had also donated to Cruz: “I wrote you a check!”
Sen. Marco Rubio interjected that Trump had never funded him.
Trump responded that Rubio had sought his support.
“He sent me his book with his autograph,” Trump said, before adding dryly, “I’m having a lot of fun tonight.”
Cruz urged Trump to relax, to which Trump replied, “I’m relaxed. You’re the basket case.”
Marco Rubio shifts his view on Apple-FBI fight
Marco Rubio’s answer was a change from last week, when he declined during a town hall to take the side of either Apple or the government on whether the tech giant should comply with a court order to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers.
Mitt Romney calls again for Trump to release his tax returns
Mitt Romney reignited his attack on Donald Trump over his tax returns Thursday, a day after suggesting that Trump must be keeping them to himself because they contain “bombshells.” During the latest Republican debate, Romney doubled down on Twitter:
Donald Trump slashes at Romney’s call for release of tax returns
GOP front-runner Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at the party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, who called on the businessman to release his full tax returns.
“Mitt Romney looked like a fool when he delayed and delayed and delayed,” Trump said during the latest GOP debate in Houston.
The wealthy Romney, who during his presidential campaign was closely scrutinized over his long refusal to release his tax returns, had said on Wednesday that he believed Trump must release his financial documents.
“We have good reason to believe that there’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes,” Romney said on Fox News. “Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn’t been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay, or perhaps he hasn’t been giving money to the vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s been doing.”
Trump said during the debate that he was being audited, and pledged to release his returns once that process was complete. He also argued that the financial disclosures he filed earlier already provided fuller disclosures than tax returns.
Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Romney also urged to release his returns, said he planned to release them Friday or Saturday.
“Luckily, I’m not being audited,” he said.
Who’s the robot now? Marco Rubio pushes Donald Trump to repetition on healthcare
Marco Rubio pummeled Donald Trump over healthcare during Thursday’s debate, forcing the billionaire to provide a specific alternative to Obamacare, which all the GOP candidates want to repeal.
“We should have gotten rid of the lines around each state so we could have real competition,” Trump began, suggesting a standard Republican proposal for healthcare reform. “That’s going to solve a lot of the problem.”
But Rubio pushed for more.
“What is your plan? This is not a game where you draw maps,” Rubio said.
Trump repeated the proposal to allow health insurance companies to cross state lines and increase competition. He promised it would be “a beautiful thing.”
“Now he’s repeating himself,” Rubio chided.
Trump brought up a previous debate in New Hampshire, which left Rubio badly bruised after he repeated himself, drawing criticism that was speaking robotically.
“I watched him repeat himself five times,” Trump lashed out.
“I saw you repeat yourself five times, five seconds ago,” Rubio said.
Donald Trump can’t be trusted on Supreme Court picks, Cruz and Rubio argue
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both argued in Thursday’s Republican presidential debate that Donald Trump could not be trusted to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
Rubio said Trump “has not been on our side” ideologically. “We’re always looking for converts to the conservative movement,” the senator from Florida said.
Cruz cited Trump’s campaign contributions years ago to such Democrats as Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Nobody who bankrolled such politicians “could possibly care” about naming conservative judges, the Texas senator said.
Trump, in turn, slammed Cruz for pushing aggressively for the appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts, who enraged conservatives by upholding President Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act.
John Kasich said he had named conservative judges as governor of Ohio. “They don’t make the law; they interpret the law,” he said.
He also said he opposes same-sex marriage, but defended his statement that merchants should not be able to refuse to sell cupcakes to a gay couple getting married. “The court has ruled, and I’ve moved on,” he said.
Mexico’s ex-president to Trump: ‘I’m not going to pay for that ... wall.’
The former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, has a blunt rebuttal to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plans to build an enormous wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m not going to pay for that ... wall,” Fox said in an interview with Univision’s Al Punto set to air on Sunday, in which he called Trump “egocentric” and a “crazy guy.”
“He should pay for it. He’s got the money.”
Trump took notice of the rebuke and gave his own response on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
“He must apologize!” he declared.
Marco Rubio spars with Donald Trump for the first time in a debate
Sen. Marco Rubio forcefully confronted Donald Trump during Thursday night’s debate, first over immigration and then over his business record, after refraining from such attacks in earlier forums.
Rubio argued that Trump was a hypocrite on immigration because of his calls for mass deportation after once supporting a path to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally and for hiring people without documentation to work on his development projects.
“A lot of these positions he’s taking are new to him,” Rubio said.
Trump conceded that he had hired such workers because they were the only ones available, but tried to turn it into a positive for himself.
“I’m the only one on this stage that has hired people,” he said.
The exchange was notable because many in the GOP establishment are calling for voters to align behind Rubio in an effort to stop Trump from winning the nomination. Rubio had until the debate avoided taking on Trump, instead leaving it to his GOP rivals.
Later, Rubio urged debate viewers to research Trump and illegal workers.
Trump replied, “You don’t know a thing about business.”
Rubio also attacked Trump’s larger business record and argued that Trump would not be a success if he had not inherited millions of dollars from his father.
“Do you know where this guy would be?” Rubio asked. “Selling watches in Manhattan.”
The history of the mass deportation program Trump cites as a model
Early in Thursday’s debate, Donald Trump cited mass deportations in the middle of the last century as a model for his proposal to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally. It’s not the first time Trump has cited the program, given by the Eisenhower administration the racist name Operation Wetback, as a model. He first referred to it in a debate in November, and the Times explored the program’s history then:
Forget the niceties: GOP debate opens with hints at the must-survive brawl to come
There were not a lot of smiles as the Republican presidential candidates slogged into their 10th debate Thursday, a must-survive face-off as the field narrows to five contenders ahead of the next contest, on March 1.
Donald Trump skipped the niceties to simply pledge to “make America great again.”
Marco Rubio checked his sunny optimism at the door, which offered a hint of the fight to come.
Ted Cruz played to the crowd in Texas, the home state he has the best chance of winning on Super Tuesday, the collection of mostly Southern states vital to his campaign.
Neurosurgeon Ben Carson opened with an appeal to his rivals to quit fighting each other to pull the country back from the “abyss of destruction.”
And Ohio Gov. John Kasich told his up-by-the-bootstraps story as the son of a mailman now running for president, as a reminder to the young people on the University of Houston campus to pursue their ambitions.
All in all, it was a quieter start to the thunder that came later.
A brief look at each candidate’s debate opener
Rubio and Cruz attack Trump over immigration record
Killer Mike exhorts black voters to back Bernie Sanders
If you want to vote to actually affect your black life, vote Bernie Sanders. If you want to vote to keep your homies in jail, vote Hillary Clinton.
— Rap artist Killer Mike, speaking to volunteers at a phone-bank event in Orangeburg, S.C., on Thursday. He made a brief appearance before fewer than a dozen volunteers at the campaign’s local headquarters.
Why tonight’s debate is airing on CNN
Ex-head of Texas GOP is confident Ted Cruz will win the state, but elsewhere ...
Steve Munisteri, former chair of the Texas Republican Party and an advisor to Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, was in the spin room in Houston ahead of the debate Thursday predicting that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will win the state’s primary next week -- but the South is another matter.
“Absent a game changer, I’m just very confident Cruz will win the state of Texas,” he said, especially given early voting already underway, Cruz’s campaign structure and contacts.
“Trump comes for one event,” he said, such as his appearance on the border in Laredo, while Cruz has made numerous appearances and “wins by default.”
But he said the South is an open question for Cruz on Super Tuesday after “the disappointment of South Carolina, the disappointment of Nevada,” citing Cruz’s losses in nominating contests in those states.
“He’s in trouble there,” Munisteri said, especially in Georgia, a big state where polls show the Cruz campaign is lagging behind. “They raised expectations they were going to win Southern states. He’s not in good shape there.”
Protesters rally for better wages and protections outside debate site
Scores of protesters gathered outside the site of the Republican debate at the University of Houston on Thursday, calling for an increase in the minimum wage, the right to form unions and immigration reform.
Kendall Fells, national organizing director of the Fight for 15 campaign to increase the minimum wage nationwide, said it’s the latest effort to draw attention to what he sees as the central issue in the presidential campaign.
“The top issue in this election is income inequality,” he said. “We did this in Milwaukee, in Iowa, in Manchester (N.H.). Workers know the eyes of the country are going to be on Texas with the primaries coming up.”
The group is advocating in 270 cities, but Texas is especially important, he said.
“What workers are really saying is we don’t care if you’re Democrat or Republican, we don’t care if you’re running for dog catcher or president, we care about $15 an hour for all minimum-wage workers across the country, the right to form a union without retaliation from their employer and comprehensive immigration reform.”
He was joined by janitors, convenience store clerks, home healthcare workers and McDonald’s employees rallying Thursday for a $15 minimum wage.
Fells didn’t name a candidate that his group supports at the debate, or who has addressed its concerns.
“What the workers are saying is if you want to be elected president of the United States of America in 2016, it’s to your benefit to support our cause,” he said.
Texas governor touts Ted Cruz ahead of debate
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made an early appearance in the spin room ahead of Thursday’s debate to tout Ted Cruz, saying he’s confident the senator will win his home state on Super Tuesday.
“Sen. Cruz is going to do quite well on primary day,” said Abbott, who appeared at an event with Cruz a day earlier.
“The states that have gotten to know Cruz the best, the people of the state of Texas, the people of Iowa, have voted for Ted Cruz. I think now, after Tuesday, he’s going to have a better opportunity to connect with people across the country and have a far better pathway to winning the nomination.”
Asked why Texas Republicans should choose Cruz over front-runner Donald Trump, Abbott said their focus on conservative values is in line with Cruz’s views.
“Ted Cruz is the man to dismantle the federal agencies that are ruining our lives,” Abbott said.
On the ground in Houston: Protesters ready to welcome candidates
Black Lives Matter activist interrupts Clinton fundraiser; Twitter responds with #WhichHillary
Activist Ashley Williams interrupted Hillary Clinton’s private fundraiser in Charleston, S.C. Wednesday night, prompting national response from Twitter.
“Can you apologize to black people for mass incarceration?” Williams asked the presidential candidate, holding a sign that read ‘“We have to bring them to heel” -- a quote from a 1996 statement Clinton made on at-risk adolescents in which she referred to some as “super-predators.”
Williams’ sign also referenced “#WhichHillary,” which led many on Twitter to pit Clinton’s past statements against her current political stances.
The activist told the Huffington Post that she and a colleague “contributed $500 to attend the Clinton event,” where approximately 100 guests were in attendance.
Hillary Clinton skeptical about Brian Sandoval for Supreme Court trial balloon
Hillary Clinton cast doubt on the idea of Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, as a Supreme Court nominee, saying that she’d like to see President Obama find a more progressive choice.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Sandoval, a former federal judge, was being considered as a potential nominee by the administration.
Supporters of a Sandoval nomination argue that picking a moderate Republican might break through the Senate GOP’s vow to block anyone the president nominated.
Clinton, however, suggested at a campaign event in South Carolina that the trade-off would not be worth making.
The Sandoval trial balloon has drawn fire from groups on the left. At the same time, conservative groups repeated their insistence that Republican senators hold fast against any Obama nominee.
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who met with Obama to talk about the high court vacancy, said in an interview with Fox News that Obama had promised a “moderate” nominee, but indicated that the promise had not changed his mind.
“He is very charming and he said he’s going to try and find a justice who would be very moderate, a nominee that would be very moderate,” Hatch said.
But the GOP opposition to considering a nominee “is not about any individual person,” he added. “This is about whether or not we should confirm somebody in the throes of a very intense, and some people think horrific, presidential campaign.”
Al Franken gets funny with Clinton
Karl Rove warns Republicans that time is running out to stop Donald Trump
Time is running out for Republicans to get behind a 2016 candidate that can defeat Donald Trump, Karl Rove is warning.
Rove, who was a top aide to President George W. Bush, acknowledged in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that Trump has a decisive lead, but he encouraged his fellow Republicans to unite behind another candidate to stave off a Trump nomination -- and quickly.
“There is still time for the non-Trump GOP majority to coalesce around a single candidate, but not much,” Rove wrote.
The window of opportunity to stop Trump will shut around mid-March, wrote Rove.
“If not, the hopes of the party’s non-Trump majority will suffer the same fate as Caesar,” Rove concluded.
As if anticipating a challenge, Trump attacked Rove before the newspaper even published his piece Wednesday night.
GOP has a shot with Latinos, but not if Trump is nominee, poll finds
About a third of the nation’s Latino voters could be up for grabs in the next election, but not if Republicans nominate Donald Trump as their candidate, a new poll indicates.
Half of Latino voters nationwide say they are certain to vote for the Democratic candidate in November, the survey for the Washington Post and Univision found. Just over one-in-eight say they will certainly vote Republican.
But about one-third of Latinos say they are uncertain about which party to back, and Latinos overall express ambivalence about President Obama’s policies, the poll found. That suggests Republicans could have an opening.
The GOP faces two huge hurdles to taking advantage of that potential, however.
One is Trump.
The billionaire New Yorker, who has based much of his campaign around denunciations of illegal immigrants and pledges to build a wall along the Mexican border, is wildly unpopular among Latinos. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said they had a “very unfavorable” view of him.
Overall, 80% had a negative view of Trump; 16% viewed him favorably. No other candidate comes close to that deficit. Both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders had strongly positive images, while opinion on the other GOP candidates is closely divided.
Trump has bragged about the finding of an entrance poll of Nevada Republican caucus voters, which found him winning among Latinos there. The number of Latinos voting in the caucuses, however, was very small, meaning that the entrance poll figure comes with a big margin of error and, in any case, says little about the preferences of Latino voters overall.
The other problem for the GOP is that the issue on which Latino voters have the most negative view of the Obama administration’s policies is deportations. The administration has deported a record number of people in the country illegally.
The Republican candidates, however, have nearly all pledged to deport more people, not fewer. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas have vowed to deport all 11 million people currently in the U.S. without legal authorization.
The poll was conducted Feb. 11-18 among 1,200 Latino registered voters nationwide. It has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
Donald Trump calls Mitt Romney a ‘fool’ for questioning his tax return
The Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, predicts that Donald Trump buried a “bombshell” in his taxes, but Trump brushed off the accusation as Romney just trying to play the “tough guy.”
Romney, who fought the release of his own tax returns in 2012, suggested on Wednesday that all of the remaining GOP candidates release theirs. Romney told Fox News that because Trump’s path to the nomination seems clearest, voters need to know whether he pays his taxes, maintains the wealth he boasts and donates funds to veterans causes as claimed.
“People have a right to know if there’s a problem in those taxes before they decide,” Romney said.
Trump, in response, called Romney a “fool” and criticized him for losing what he called a winnable race against President Obama.
But Trump did agree to talk with his campaign staff about whether he will release his tax documents in the next few months.
“Tax returns are very complicated,” Trump told CNN on Wednesday. “I have many, many companies, I have a very complex system of taxes, and frankly I get audited every single year.”
While Hillary Clinton talks about race, Bernie Sanders turns elsewhere to reach minority voters
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have a similar agenda when it comes to issues of special concern to black and Latino voters, but take starkly different approaches to winning them over.
Clinton has plunged into a forceful and provocative conversation about race, using language about white privilege and the bigotry that persists in American society, which past candidates have long avoided for fear of alienating white swing voters.
Sanders unapologetically hews to the denunciations of Wall Street and a rigged economy that he relied on to win over mostly white audiences in liberal college towns and campaign rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire. He acknowledges the reality of racism, but mostly describes society’s problems in terms of class and income.
The candidates’ divergent paths, on display as they woo a Democratic electorate in the South Carolina primary that is majority black, reflect the competing priorities of minorities at the ballot box. Hot-button and often deeply personal concerns such as immigration and racial justice rank high, but so too does anxiety over an economic recovery that has failed to provide blacks and Latinos the same relief it has whites.
The prospect of a Trump-Rubio rumble and 3 other things to watch for in the Republican debate
Their field now narrowed to five, the Republican presidential candidates square off Thursday for their 10th debate, but one dynamic remains the same: Can any other candidate gain on front-runner Donald Trump?
Taking on Trump will probably fall to Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who has been more willing to engage in direct battle with the celebrity billionaire than his close rival, fellow Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Both men are struggling to emerge from Trump’s shadow as the GOP’s best alternative as the race heads to Super Tuesday, the prized collection of delegates in mostly Southern states. But their ascent is being complicated by the still fluid field, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who both will still compete in the March 1 contests.
Here are a few things to watch for.