***Horse Race LiveWire*** Two Days to Florida, Ohio

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Breitbart News

Welcome to Breitbart News’s daily live updates of the 2016 horse race.

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All times eastern.

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6:09 – CNN gives a national megaphone to the man who jumped on Donald Trump’s stage on Saturday. Who knows if such a huge reward serves will provide a personal and political incentive for many more people to attack Trump’s stages.

5:38 – Laura Ingraham implies the left doesn’t see the rest of the GOP field as a threat.

5:29 – Kasich laying out post-Ohio voting campaign stops:

4:58 – Rubio tweets attack ad against Trump. “It all comes down to Florida.”

4:51 – Politico Mag: Why evangelicals are backing Trump. They’re putting country before their faith!

White evangelicals helped to send Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to the White House, so courting them early and often has become perhapsthe great art of running for office as a Republican. For decades, Republican politicians have gone on pilgrimage, Bible in hand, to Bob Jones University and Liberty University to court the Jesus vote. Even nominal churchgoers like Reagan have done what no European politician would ever do: pledge their prayerful allegiance to Christ. Along the way, they have repeatedly promised to restore school prayer or stop gay marriage or overturn Roe v. Wade.

What they have delivered, however, is defeat after defeat in the culture wars. Cultural conservatives failed to pass constitutional amendments on school prayer or abortion. They lost on Bill Clinton’s impeachment. They lost on pop culture, where movies and television shows today make the sort of entertainment decried by the Moral Majority look like It’s a Wonderful Life. And same-sex marriage is now the law of the land.

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Today, when born-again Christians hold up posters at rallies that read, “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for President Trump,” when they say they are sick of false promises from supposedly pious presidents on abortion or gay marriage and just want a strong man in the White House who can stop illegal immigration or keep us safe or just “smash things,” what are they saying? They are saying that their political identity has trumped their religious identity. They are saying that they are conservatives first and Christians second.

 

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The Trump candidacy is no outlier. He has not hypnotized evangelicals into forgetting the foundations of their faith. He is simply revealing the fact that their faith is now more political than theological. The white evangelicals who flock to his rallies like their parents once did to Billy Graham revivals know that he lives a life comically at odds with teachings of the Bible and the examples of the saints. But his political theology resonates powerfully with their narrative of decline and revival. Classically that narrative ran from sin in the Garden of Eden to redemption on the cross. Today it takes place in an America that has fallen from its founding glory yet will, by God’s grace and Trump’s hand, be made great again.

4:49 – Cruz joins the crowd:

4:31 – Kasichmentum:

4:29 – Getting kinda emo.

4:24 – Cruz zinger about DC primary:

4:16 – Pretty deep NYT analysis.

4:15 – Crowd size at Rubio event 300+. Cruz addressing 2,000-ish.

4:07 – At long last.

3:58 – Fiorina stumping for Cruz in NC:

3:53 – Video via Breitbart’s Charlie Spiering:

3:48 – Rowdy!

3:47 – Pretty great get at Rubio rally, as Trump references Patton in his stump speech:

3:37 – Trump is holding a dueling event with Kasich in Youngstown, OH tomorrow. Seems to think he has Florida locked up.

3:34 – Cruz rally in NC has been going “a couple of hours” without Ted making an appearance:

2:56 – Seems Trump caught wind of the NYT piece calling him a homebody with few friends.

2:54 – Trump attack ad in Ohio taken off the air–lack of proper legal disclaimer cited:

2:46 – Sanders leads Illinois in the latest CBS poll:

2:44 – Politico: Cruz’s data team drives delegate hunt:

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — Ted Cruz’s team, long obsessed with data and voter modeling, has kicked its dependency on analytics into overdrive, shifting on a dime as delegate targets emerge in pockets of North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri.

The Texas senator’s operation is now making decisions based on daily and sometimes hourly data about where he stands to pick up the most delegates in the next round of voting, and only then publicly announcing his plans, typically with 24 hours’ notice or less.

“We poll every night; we’re tracking where we should go, allocating resources on a daily basis, making decisions on a daily basis — in many cases, changing decisions on a daily basis,” said one source close to the campaign. “At this stage of the game, you’ve got to be strategic.”

2:31 – Trump: Kasich shouldn’t be on the ballot in Ohio.

1:32 – Do they play Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the Golf Channel?

1:29 – Kasich: Take my wife, GOPlease.

1:26 – The “legal immigrant for Trump” got his t-shirt signed.

1:10 – Trump does a flashback of pre-Cruz endorsement Fiorina.

1:06 – Photos: Palin in Florida.

1:05 – Next rally in Cincinnati:

12:50 – Trump’s closing: “I love you Illinois. Go out and vote on Tuesday. I will never let you down.”

12:45 – Trump criticizes Obama for failing to call Islamic State’s campaign of killing Christians “genocide.” Says nobody understands why; he thinks he knows why but won’t say.

12:44 – Trump says that if he used the F word like Vicente Fox, he would “get the electric chair.” Says Mexico is so freaked out because they’re used to getting everything they want.

12:43 – 20 protesters.

12:41 – Oof.

12:38 – Trump says his wife & daughter tell him that some of his rhetoric “is not presidential… I don’t care.”

12:36 – Trump: In Japan, they don’t want products made in America. They want products made there, because they’re proud of their country. We’re going to do the same here and be proud of our country.

12:33 – Man in a “legal immigrant for Trump” shirt comes on stage.

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12:30 – Trump: “A movement is only good if you win.” Speculates that he might tell supporters they’re down “a little bit” to push turnout in Illinois.

12:29 – Trump talks about how he set the trend for border wall–Rubio, Cruz have both adopted it. Says he did the same on opposing Iraq war.

12:26 – Another protester. “Go back home, darling.”

12:25 – Trump pivots to Kasich. “I don’t want a guy that watches the Golf Channel and nothing else!”

12:24 – Cruz not doing well with evangelicals “because evangelicals are smart and evangelicals do not like liars.”

12:23 – Trump says he can optimistically discount Rubio, launches into a longer attack against Cruz. Calls him “Lyin’ Ted,” brings up Ben Carson endorsement and the Iowa snafu.

12:20 – Second one: “Get him out of here. Send him back to Bernie!”

12:19 – Trump says he is drawing “hundreds of thousands” of people to vote for the first time, compares to depressed Dem primary turnout. “There’s no spirit to the Democrats. We’re going to win a very big election.”

12:17 – Trump says “elite” conservative pundits attacking him aren’t really elites; they don’t have a private jet like him. Says instead that actual elites are calling him to make deals because “they’ve never seen anything like this [pointing to crowd].”

12:16 – Trump: “We all want peace… we don’t want trouble.” Launches into a speech on how people are being “disenfranchised” in America. Conflating the free speech and economic opportunity of his supporters.

12:15 – Trump does his first “get him out of here”–albeit with a “please” attached.

12:13 – Trump passes along the rumor that Bill Ayers “wrote Obama’s first book, the good one.”

12:11 – Trump frames the argument less as protesters vs. his supporters than the media vs. his supporters: “He [the protester who got punched] was hitting people. And when we hit back, we’re the bad ones.”

12:09 – Trump turns the tables: “Can you imagine if some of you went to a Bernie rally?” Then comments on Bernie’s electoral woes, then how he’ll prefer to run against Hillary.

12:08 – Trump says “nobody” has been injured at his “shows.” “I guess I’m getting soft,” he quips.

12:01 – Rally proper should begin soon.

11:56 – Protester with peace-sign flag escorted out of Trump rally.

11:51 – Last night John Boehner announced he had cast his vote early for Kasich in Ohio:

11:46 – IL state rep. John Cabello, who is Mexican-American, endorses Trump at Bloomington.

11:44 – Drudge highlights a new coughing fit video of Hillary:

11:40 – Pastor giving invocation at Trump rally asks for protection:

11:35 – NY Times profile: Trump has no friends.

Last month Donald J. Trump told a crowd in New Hampshire that he would happily annoy his wealthy friends if it meant getting big money out of politics. “I have no friends, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “You know who my friends are? You’re my friends.”

This, of course, was the sort of just-folks gambit that has won Mr. Trump new — or renewed — friends, like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. But there was perhaps some inadvertent truth in the remark. For nearly half a century, Mr. Trump — mogul, actor, incessant boldface name — has labored to portray himself as a charming bon vivant with a limitless supply of popularity. But his actual social circle has a fairly small diameter — even in his hometown, New York.

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[Joe] Scarborough, who has been criticized for cozying up to Mr. Trump, said he had recently examined their relationship and come to the conclusion that their bond was less substantial than he thought. “After I was accused of being too close to him, I started going, ‘Wait a second. I’ve known this guy for a decade and I’ve never once had lunch with him alone?’”

11:30 – New NBC/WSJ/Marist poll: Cruz ties it up with Rubio in Florida, Kasich up six in Ohio.

11:11 – Alex Swoyer: Trump supporters are yelling at protesters even before it starts.

11:05 – All eyes on Trump rally in Bloomington, Illinois as security from violent protesters has dominated the news cycle:

https://twitter.com/JaxAlemany/status/709019730514997248

11:03 – Via Alex Swoyer, Trump has been busy tweeting this morning.

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