Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, has vowed to vote third party in November before supporting Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan suggested Trump was leveraging racism to win votes. Representative Scott Rigell, a Virginia Republican, said the front-runner was “unworthy” of the party's nomination.
It's an open question what success a continued assault from the Republican establishment would have on Trump. In recent days, the New York businessman easily fended off a frantic, last-minute push from party stalwarts like 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney to thwart his success.
“It looks like he'll have more than enough delegates to stop any kind of challenge at the convention if these trends continue,” said Ron Kaufman, a Republican national commiteeman from Massachusetts. “This certainly isn't over yet, but you have to give the devil his due. It's a pretty impressive start.”
For his part, Trump—who has compared undocumented immigrants to rapists, called for a temporary halt on Muslim immigration, and has mocked a disabled reporter—portrayed himself as a uniting figure on Tuesday. At his beachfront resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump held a news conference with many presidential touches in the background, including several American flags and a sitting U.S. governor flanking him.
Trump pointed to victories in some of the most populated states to hold primary contests so far, and the record turnout that has come in many of them, as evidence that he is “expanding the party” enough to easily beat Hillary Clinton.
“Our party is expanding and all you have to do is take a look at the primary states where I’ve won,” Trump said. “We’ve gone from one number to a much larger number. That hasn’t happened to the Republican Party in many, many decades. So I think we’re going to be more inclusive, more unified and a much bigger party and I think we’re going to win in November.”
Trump described himself as a unifying candidate.
“I know people are going to find that a little bit hard to believe, but believe me, I am a unifier,” Trump said. “Once we get all of this finished. I am going to go after one person, that’s Hillary Clinton.”
Trump claimed responsibility for record turnout in the first four primary contests last month, and another explosion of Republican voting on Tuesday. There were reports of long lines outside polling places in Alaska, Republicans crammed into entranceways of Minnesota caucus locations, and record turnout in Massachusetts, the state where Romney served as a popular governor for four years.
Turnout in the Texas primary was expected to be record breaking with 2.5 million voters, a feat where turnout in a state Republican primary has never been above 1.5 million, according to Derek Ryan, founder of Ryan Data & Research, an Austin-based political consulting firm that specializes in voter data.