Republican front-runner Donald Trump racked up primary wins in the big prize of Michigan as well as Mississippi and Hawaii on Tuesday, brushing off a week of blistering attacks from the party’s establishment and expanding his lead in the White House nominating race.
Trump’s convincing win in Michigan restored his outsider campaign’s momentum and increased the pressure on the party’s anti-Trump forces to find a way to stop the brash billionaire’s march to the nomination ahead of several key contests next week.
The brash billionaire built his victories in Michigan, in the heart of the industrial Midwest, and Mississippi in the Deep South with broad appeal across many demographics. He won evangelical Christians, Republicans, independents, those who wanted an outsider, according to exit polls.
Trump said in several TV interviews on Wednesday he was drawing new voters to the Republican Party and the establishment figures who are resisting his campaign should save their money and focus on beating the Democrats in November.
The results were a setback for rival Ohio Governor John Kasich, who had hoped to pull off a surprise win in neighbouring Michigan, and for US Senator from Florida Marco Rubio.
US Senator from Texas Ted Cruz won the party’s primary in Idaho.
The Michigan victory sets Trump up for a potentially decisive day of voting next week. On March 15, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina - like Michigan, states rich in the delegates who will select their party’s nominee at July’s Republican National Convention - cast ballots.
The Republican contests in Florida and Ohio award all the state’s delegates to the winner. If Trump could sweep those two states and pile up delegates elsewhere next week, it could knock home-state favourites Rubio and Kasich out of the race and make it tough for Cruz to catch him.