Donald Trump is "far and away the front-runner," for the GOP presidential nomination and the establishment is "living in a fantasy land," by denying that big changes are happening, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday.
"Trump is tapping into something in the country that's real," Gingrich told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"If you take Trump's vote and Cruz's vote and Carson's vote — the three outsiders — they are once again at about 62 percent in South Carolina, and they have been consistently above 60 percent everywhere in the country. If you pull together all of the insurgents, there's a message there."
Further, Gingrich said that Trump is by far the party front-runner, and the real tests are coming for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to win primaries in their own home states.
"He has vastly more delegates," Gingrich said. "Can Rubio win Florida? Right now Trump is winning Florida. How well does Cruz do in Texas? Trump is a national player and he's strong everywhere."
Trump won in South Carolina on Saturday by the margin he needed, said Gingrich, and seized the victory by doing a whole range of things the former speaker did not think would work.
Including picking fights with former President George W. Bush, "who's very popular as a person, but clearly not as popular in terms of his policies."
However, Gingrich said he does not know if getting the support of Jeb Bush, who suspended his own candidacy after his low showing in the South Carolina primary election, will help Rubio, even in their mutual home state of Florida, or if Bush's super PAC money would help.
"If there was malpractice in politics, I think Jeb Bush would have a good case to sue the people who ran his super PAC for malpractice, but the Bush money will split, I think, probably 80 percent or 90 percent for Rubio, and a small amount for John Kasich," said Gingrich.
"I think they're uncomfortable with Cruz and they're very uncomfortable with Trump."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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