14 March,2016 09:37 AM IST | | Agencies
While he was defeated by Marco Rubio in Washington DC, Ted Cruz crushed him in Wyoming by winning 66.3% votes
Donald Trump at a rally at the International Exposition Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
Washington: Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump yesterday suffered a double blow as the controversial Republican front-runner was routed by rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in polls in the US capital and Wyoming, signalling that the fight for securing the party's nomination was hotting up ahead of crucial primaries on Tuesday.
Donald Trump at a rally at the International Exposition Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Pic/AFP
Seeking to put a break to Trump's momentum in the race for the White House, Republican presidential candidates Senators Cruz and Rubio scored victories in the party's caucuses in Wyoming and District of Columbia respectively.
While Cruz added nine delegates to his kitty, Rubio had 10 more as they now set their sights on the crucial Republican party's presidential primaries in the key states of Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina on March 15.
Trump, the 69-year-old real estate tycoon, is said to be the favourite at this point of time as he has the maximum number of 460 delegates followed by Cruz (367), Rubio (153) and the Ohio Governor John Kasich (63). To win the party's presidential nominee, the candidates need to have the support of 1,237 delegates out of a total of 2,472.
In the Republican caucus in the US capital, Rubio earned 37.3 per cent of the vote against 35.5 per cent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. Trump was third, with 13.8 per cent support.
Cruz is the only Republican candidate to have defeated Trump in more than half a dozen states. He handsomely defeated Trump in Wyoming. Cruz won nearly two-thirds of the total vote in Wyoming Caucuses. Cruz crushed Trump by winning 66.3 per cent of the ballots, far ahead of Rubio, his nearest rival, who earned 19.5 per cent of the vote. Trump came in third with a measly 7.2 per cent.
On the Democratic side, Former Secretary of State and front-runner Hillary Clinton won in the first ever Democratic Party caucus on the Northern Mariana Islands, a US possession deep in the Pacific Ocean. She won four delegates, while her rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, won two.
