Super Tuesday 2 is critical day for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign

MARCH 15 could be remembered as the day it all went wrong for the world. It’s a critical test for anti-Trump forces to stop his momentous rise.

IT’S been dubbed Super Tuesday 2.0 — the day the world will likely know for certain whether outspoken billionaire Donald Trump has secured the Republican nomination, putting him within reach of the US presidency.

On March 15, five states will go to the polls including Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio as well as the Northern Mariana Islands. While it’s not as many as the March 1 original Super Tuesday event, it crucially contains the winner-takes-all states of Florida and Ohio, with a whopping 99 and 66 delegates respectively up for grabs, that could give Trump the momentum he needs to take it all the way.

To add to the drama, Florida and Ohio are home grounds for fellow contenders Marco Rubio (senator) and John Kasich (governor). Failing to take home a win for either of them is likely to put a nail in the coffin of their presidential ambitions, and could clear the way even further for Trump.

Chatham House’s head of the US and America’s program Xenia Wickett said the race is at a critical “pivot edge” which could see Trump become “almost unstoppable” if polls play out as predicted.

“This is the moment where he becomes essentially unstoppable,” she said. “Not by numbers alone unstoppable, but effectively unstoppable if he does well on Tuesday. And if you look at the polling, he should do well.”

CNN polls show Trump leading in both Ohio and Florida head of the critical vote, with 41 per cent in Ohio compared to 35 per cent for Kasich and 40 per cent in Florida compared to 24 per cent for Rubio.

Flordia Senator Marco Rubio could be forced to quit his race if he does not take home his critical home state of Florida. Picture: Pedro Portal/The Miami Herald via AP

As it stands, Trump has 458 of the 1237 delegate seats needed to win the nomination. Cruz has 359, Rubio has 151 and Kasich has 54. Ben Carson has suspended his campaign and recently endorsed Trump, following in the footsteps of Chris Christie last month.

The real-estate mogul has also won 15 states compared to Cruz’s seven. Rubio has taken two and Kasich has zero. It puts him as the candidate with the “most momentum and highest delegate count” heading into Super Tuesday 2.0 the Boston Globe reports. While Cruz is still in the game, Rubio and Kasich’s campaigns appear “futile.”.

On the day, 367 delegates will be up for grabs with most on a winner-takes-all basis. While it won’t be enough for Trump to secure the nomination outright, it will put him well on the path and if it triggers a resignation for Rubio or Kasich, could be a watershed moment.

Ms Wickett said Trump’s success has created two schools of thought within the Republican party; stop him at all costs and ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’.

“There are some within the establishment that have finally come together to realise that he’s a real threat. That he may go all the way and in the last really two weeks they’ve been working very, very hard to make sure that doesn’t take place,” she said, as seen through Mitt Romney’s recent attack and a boost in funding for anti-Trump advertisements.

“At the same time you are beginning to see an increasing number of Republicans actually say ‘you know what? If we need to we’ll work with him.’”

If you don’t recognise Ohio Governor John Kasich, it could be because he is yet to win a single state. Picture: Pedro Portal/The Miami Herald via AP

At this stage it would take a dramatic dropout from Cruz or banding together of the remaining three candidates to stop his seemingly unstoppable rise. It’s also possible that Rubio or Kasich pull off a win and deprive Trump of the magical number of 1237 delegates needed. This could trigger a brokered convention in which all delegates go back to the floor and are up for grabs once more.

In the final days before Super Tuesday, Ms Wickett said remaining candidates will be throwing the kitchen sink at voters in an attempt to shore up support. If Trump does secure the nomination it’s not “inconceivable” he takes the White House, with polls showing an average of seven percentage points between himself and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

As for what kind of President the tycoon-turned-reality-star would make, “the answer is we just don’t know.”

Ms Wickett said while some think it could be a horror story with walls going up and Muslims banned from entering the US leading Republicans to abandon the party, some think it’s not all doom and gloom.

“The other scenario is that actually he’s a businessman, he’s smart, this is marketing. Like so many other politicians you say one thing to win the primary, you see another thing to win the election then you govern in a third way.”

“He gets that, and an awful lot of Republicans could increasingly be drawn towards him because they’ve been out for eight years so actually his presidency wouldn’t be so far off what we’ve seen in the past. The trouble is we just don’t know.”