Will Rubio Stay In The Race?; Countdown To Super Tuesday; Trump Leading GOP Delegate Count
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Counting down to Super Tuesday and voters will begin lining up in just a few hours. This is CNN tonight, I'm Don Lemon. By this time tomorrow, nearly 60 percent of GOP delegates will be allocated and the whole thing could come down to winner take all contests in Florida and Ohio. Could this be the last chance for Republican powers at be to stop Donald Trump? And on the Democratic side, can Hillary Clinton deliver a knockout blow to Bernie Sanders, to the Sanders campaign? I want to bring in now CNN's Rosa Flores in Ohio and Sara Murray who is in Florida. Hello to both of you. Rosa, first, is Trump worried about winning Ohio? Is that why he's there tonight?</s>ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Don, the answer is yes, absolutely. Right now in the polls, Kasich and Trump are head to head and every single vote counts. That's why he was here. In fact, he flew from Florida, held this event here at this venue, you can see people breaking down the stage behind me, and then he flew right back to Florida. But we've got to mention this. Lately, in the past week, all of the Trump events have been overshadowed by protesters, probably the most explosive in Chicago at the University of Illinois where protesters and supporters clashed. They threw punches at each other, leaving a police officer bleeding and also leading to the cancellation of that event. So what happened here today in Ohio? Something very different. The Trump organization controlling the message. Hear this. They asked supporters, attendees, to park about seven miles from this location and then they screened those attendees and bussed them to this location. So did it work? Absolutely. Not one disruption during tonight's event. Donald Trump speaking about Ohio and how it should be a big win for him but again, the bottom line, Ohio means big for Trump because this could mean that he gets his rivals out of the way, including Kasich, and for Kasich, of course, it could be a big win. He could change the narrative of this campaign if he wins big in his home state.</s>LEMON: And Rosa, we did see Sarah Palin out stumping for him in Florida. Tell us about that.</s>FLORES: Sarah Palin was out in full force and in full color as well. As expected, typical Palin, she had some colorful words for protesters.</s>SARAH PALIN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: We've needed a revolution and we found our revolutionary! Donald J. Trump is that revolutionary. What we don't have time for is all that petty punk ass little buggery stuff that's been going on with these quote unquote, protesters.</s>FLORES: Again, the Trump organization controlling the message, bussing attendees to the venue here in Ohio to avoid clashes between supporters and protesters. Don --</s>LEMON: All right, Rosa, thank you. Sara, on the eve of his home state's primary, how confident is Marco Rubio?</s>SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he and his campaign are still insisting that they have a good shot to win here in Florida but, of course, they are facing a very steep, uphill climb and it was really telling to see Marco Rubio at his events earlier tonight because he was very reflective, not only on sort of where he has come during this campaign, he expressed some regrets about some of the language he used against Donald Trump, about sort of getting down there in the gutter and not appearing as presidential as he wanted to, but he also expressed alarm at the tone that we've heard from Donald Trump and some of the things that he said, including about violence at his own rallies, and he also sort of seemed beside himself saying that humility used to be a virtue and now it seems to be a weakness.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a culture today where what used to be wrong is now considered right. My whole life I've been told, being humble is a virtue. And now being humble is a weakness and being vain and self-absorbed is somehow a virtue. My whole life I've been told, no matter how you may feel about someone, you respect everyone, because we are all children of the same god.</s>MURRAY: And Don, we've heard these kinds of comments from Marco Rubio over and over again tonight and it really just gives you the sense that going into tomorrow, he views this not just a fight for his campaign and for the future of his campaign to win Florida, but also as a fight between the values and sort of the conservatism that he holds dear versus what they see from Donald Trump. I mean, there are a number of Republicans that are telling me that not only do they hate the kind of politics that Donald Trump is espousing but they are also kind of afraid of it, Don.</s>LEMON: Are there signs, Sara, that Marco Rubio may be out if he doesn't do well tomorrow?</s>MURRAY: Well, his campaign is being very careful to say that that is not the case. They are not saying that if he doesn't win Florida he will all of a sudden get out of the race, but his Super PAC, for instance, hasn't reserved any time on the airwaves past Tuesday. They are really the ones who are bolstering him here in Florida, so that's sort of telling, and just the fact that it is his Super PAC that's spending on the airwaves in Florida, it's not the campaign, tells you that they're having a problem raising the kind of money that they need to keep posting an aggressive stance up against Donald Trump. Of course, that all could change if Rubio pulls out a surprise victory here, but it does give you a sense of sort of the obstacles that he's going to face if he does lose Florida and still for some reason decides to stay in this race. Don --</s>LEMON: Sara Murray and Rosa Flores, thanks to both of you. Let's discuss all of this now. Matt Lewis of "The Daily Caller" is a senior contributor and the author of "Too Dumb to Fail". CNN political commentators Kayleigh McEnany and Margaret Hoover. Hello to all of you. Again, to some of you, at least one of you. Matt, you say tomorrow is the most important day in the election season so far. Are you nervous?</s>MATT LEWIS, AUTHOR, TOO DUMB TO FAIL: No, I don't get nervous about that. But it is. I think it's the most important because, look, if Donald Trump wins both, then I think he's going to get the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. If he loses both states, I think it's very likely we have a contested convention, and if he wins one state and loses another, as I suspect he probably will, then in that case, the muddle goes on. So it's a chance for Trump to close it out or for the empire to strike back.</s>LEMON: Kayleigh, is Kasich in Ohio Trump's stiffest competition yet, do you think?</s>KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No doubt about it, because Ohio has 66 delegates. It's an enormously important state in that sense. It's a winner take all, and this is a very popular governor. He has a 62 percent approval rating. But Trump's strong point there is hitting Kasich on NAFTA. This is a region of the country that has been hurt with manufacturing jobs and saying, your jobs have gone overseas. I'm here. I'm your anti-free trade person. So, yes, it's his strongest competitor. He still has a shot. But even if he loses Ohio, going forward, if he wins Florida, he only needs (ph) 50 percent more of the remaining delegates. Many of the states coming forward are winner take all states so he's in a very strong position if he walks off tomorrow just with Florida.</s>LEMON: You don't seem to agree with that.</s>MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well I just disagree on the point that Ohio has suffered economically under Kasich's term as governor. I mean, Ohio did very well because of the auto bailouts, and frankly, because of natural gas. The huge boom in that part of the country, while the rest of the country was really enduring really terrible unemployment rates, Ohio was buttressed because of this growth, this explosion in the energy industry. Kasich has the ground game. Kasich has the political infrastructure. Kasich has the, get out the vote and party apparatus, so I think Kayleigh's right, that's the one place where I think we can have confidence that Donald Trump can be able to be stopped. It certainly doesn't look that way in Florida. But the question is, then what? I think Matt's right, the muddle goes on. Republicans have to think clearly about what they're going to do. What happens to the never-Trump movement? Because it really started as a pro-Rubio, pro-mainstream Republican movement under the guise of being anti-Trump. But do mainstream Republicans go with Cruz or do they sit out this election or find a protest candidate?</s>LEMON: All right. Let's move on. Those are good questions but I need to talk quickly about Florida. Who wins Florida? Because Florida is in play as well.</s>HOOVER: You want my guess?</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>HOOVER: I mean, the voter's have got to decide but it's looking like Trump right now. And I have to say, those numbers -- this is just analysts. Marco Rubio's numbers seem to have really dropped over the weekend and a Monmouth poll that came out said, 22 percent of people think that the violence in Chicago actually helped Donald Trump over the weekend, not hurt him.</s>LEMON: Go ahead, Kayleigh.</s>MCENANY: There have been six polls that have come out in two days. Donald Trump is ahead astounding in all of them, in most of them by 20 points. The question to me in Florida tomorrow is not, does Donald Trump win, it's does Ted Cruz beat Marco Rubio in his own home state? Do you know how monumental that would be? If Marco Rubio not only lost but lost to both Trump and Cruz, it would mean more credence to this narrative of, it's an outsider election, where even the outsiders beat Marco Rubio in his own home state.</s>LEMON: Matt, what happens -- Kasich wins Ohio, Trump wins Florida, and then Cruz comes in second in Florida and Rubio comes in third in his own home state?</s>LEWIS: Well I don't think that's going to happen. Look, Cuban-Americans in south Florida are historically difficult to poll. I think Marco Rubio is going to do better than people think. I think Trump wins Florida.</s>LEMON: Do you think he's going to win it?</s>LEWIS: No. I think Trump wins Florida but I think Rubio does better than people think. And I have to say, I'm very proud of him. If you watch -- you played that clip of him earlier, where he's talking about, you know, he had gotten off and sort of talking about Donald Trump's hand size or whatever, this is the Marco Rubio, if he goes out, he's going to go out in style. It is what it is, but I think he's going to hold his head high with the comments he's making and I think he's right on track right now.</s>LEMON: All right. Everyone stay with me. When we come right back, could an open convention be the worst of all possible worlds for the GOP and is there a third-party candidate waiting in the wing?