On Tuesday, March 2nd, 2016, 11 Republican caucuses were held, with Donald Trump taking a massive win of seven out of the eleven states caucusing. This put a 90 delegate gap between Trump and the next candidate Ted Cruz. After his recent wins on Saturday, he gained another 53 delegates. Bernie Sanders has also been falling behind in the polls which is surprising due to the popular opinion he had held leading up to the start of the caucus season. Donald Trump has been under fire from the beginning of his bid for the presidency. It has been claimed that Donald Trump is a hateful supremacist, has been an advocate for war crimes, and doesn’t feel that women need to be protected. He in recent weeks has recanted many of his statements to clarify what he meant in the original statements he made.
Donald Trump also sat in the hot seat for his immigration policies, his want to keep Muslims out of the country for an undetermined amount of time, and his plan to build a wall on our southern border with Mexico. These policies are most often an all-in or a never-going-to-be-on-board type of deal; the public is rarely on the fence when it comes to Trump’s policies. One student stated, “I truly believe he is stating hatred with his immigration policies.” This student also claimed to fall more left in the political spectrum. Mr. Trump has attempted to make clear in statements his true feelings and opinions on people of other cultures entering and residing in this country.
Bernie Sanders has also been making major statements for his policies recently and seems to be gearing his campaign more to a younger crowd and towards parents with kids nearing college age. Some of the spotlight foundations of his campaign--the ones that many political analysts think Mr. Sanders may have been resting on too heavily to carry him--are his ideals for legalized marijuana on a national level and for free college for everyone. What these people hadn’t considered is that by the time these policies could actually take place, which I figured was about two years at the absolute minimum without an executive order; by that time, most of the people that these policies are trying to appeal to would already be in college.
When asked what their feelings on the possibility of not being grandfathered into the new policy of free college one student responded “I would be pissed because he is trying to gear his campaign towards people like us [High School Students].” Another student thought differently, not so much worrying about not having to pay for the education but worrying being grandfathered into the degrading of the quality of education. The student worried about everyone all of a sudden being on a level playing field making an already challenging job market that much harder. The student told me, “everyone would attend college. That would then make all of our educations equal. I worry that then colleges will come out with a secondary college that costs extra, and to stand out from the rest of the crowd, you would need that.” All of these major promises from Mr. Sanders haven’t shown up in the polls with an almost 700 delegate gap between himself and the Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In recent weeks Mr. Trump has gone above and beyond in recent weeks to clarify past statements and comments in order to boost his poll numbers with caucus season now in full swing. These statements have proven to be quite useful for the Republican front runner who still holds his strong lead over the runner up Ted Cruz, going into Tuesday night’s caucuses. These caucuses held great things for Donald Trump who won won three of the four republican caucuses taking over 70 delegates and now holding a 99 delegate lead over the runner up Ted Cruz.