Trump calls on GOP to unify behind his candidacy

Associated Press

FORT MYERS, Fla.

His party in disarray, a surging Donald Trump called on mainstream Republicans to unify behind his candidacy Wednesday as his White House rivals pursued their last best opportunity to block the billionaire businessman from building an insurmountable delegate lead in two key states.

The often-brash Trump softened his tone, at least temporarily, hours after securing three more primary victories, praising House Speaker Paul Ryan as a man he respects and encouraging Mitt Romney to promote party harmony. As for his own campaign, he said he’s poised to score a knockout in next week’s winner-take-all primaries in Florida and Ohio.

“If I win those two, I think it’s over,” he told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper’s 360.”

“Instead of fighting it, they should embrace it,” he added on Fox News Channel. “If we embrace what’s happening and if everybody came together ... nobody could beat the Republican Party.”

Still, amid growing resistance to Trump’s insurgent campaign, a number of former GOP presidential hopefuls have re-emerged in support of his current rivals.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush planned to confer with all the candidates – save Trump – ahead of Thursday’s GOP debate. He was meeting privately with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Wednesday, and planned to meet with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Thursday, said Kristy Campbell, Bush’s former campaign spokeswoman. She provided no details.

Bush and Trump engaged in heated confrontations throughout Bush’s campaign, repeatedly referring to each other as a “loser.”

In Miami on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tangled repeatedly in their eighth presidential debate over who’s a true advocate for Latinos and who has a track record of letting Hispanics down.

Facing off just six days before Florida gives its verdict on the presidential race, Clinton faulted Sanders for repeatedly voting against a 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill; he faulted her for opposing a 2007 effort to allow people who were in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses.

Had the immigration package passed back then, Clinton said, “a lot of the issues we are still discussing today would be in the rearview mirror.”

Sanders retorted that he opposed the legislation because it included a guest- worker program “akin to slavery.”

Both bidding for momentum after Sanders startled Clinton with an upset victory in Michigan on Tuesday, the two candidates laid out rival paths to the Democratic nomination.