LEESBURG, Va.—The final-days sprint to Super Tuesday has erupted into a feud over a white supremacist as Donald Trump’s Republican rivals scramble to stop the billionaire businessman from becoming an “unstoppable” force in the 2016 presidential contest.
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continued to hammer the GOP front-runner’s character and lack of policy specifics in a series of attacks Sunday while courting voters across the South. But it was Trump’s refusal to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke that dominated the narrative less than two days before Republican voters across 11 states head to the polls.
The new focus comes as Trump’s rivals acknowledge that time is running out to prevent the former reality television host from becoming the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee. He took a new step in that direction by earning the endorsement of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a would-be Cruz ally who backed Trump instead.
“There is no doubt that if Donald steam rolls through Super Tuesday, wins everywhere with big margins, that he may well be unstoppable,” Cruz said Sunday on CBS' “Face the Nation.”
The latest shake up in the GOP race comes as attention shifts to the South, where the region will dominate on Super Tuesday — March 1 — and the weeks beyond.
Trump holds commanding leads across the region, with the exception of Cruz’s home state of Texas, a dynamic that puts tremendous pressure on Rubio and Cruz as they try to outlast each other and derail Trump.
Trump mocked the Republican establishment and his flailing rivals. “It’s amazing what’s going on,” he told NBC, calling his campaign a “movement.”
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