U.S. election 2016: Donald Trump predicts Republican onslaught

Ryan said he doesn’t know Trump well, but is planning to touch base with the NY businessman (and the other remaining candidates) in the near future to discuss the forthcoming House GOP agenda.

“The only serious policy proposals that deal with the broad range of national challenges we confront today come from Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich”, Mr Romney said of Mr Trump’s rivals.

If Trump does indeed become the GOP nominee, party leaders have no one to blame but themselves.

Romney said Trump’s economic policy would sink America “into prolonged recession” and his foreign policy would endanger the country. These states could take an outsized role in determining who wins the nomination.

The back-and-forth comes as Republican candidates prepared for the first post-Super Tuesday debate, scheduled for Thursday night.

And giving a glimpse of what sort of campaign he would run against the former first lady, he attacked her for being a Washington insider and also made it clear that he would argue that Mrs Clinton’s e-mail scandal was “disqualifying”.

He is not expected to endorse one of Mr Trump’s opponents during the speech. While that could typically be a welcome sign for a party that has struggled to attract new voters in recent presidential elections, party leaders were privately grappling with the reality that some of those voters were in fact registering their opposition to the Republican establishment.

Asked if he believes Trump will sign on to the planned House Republican agenda should he win the GOP nomination, Ryan said “we’ll see when we have a nominee”. They include a contested convention and even the long-shot prospect of a third party option.

Also on Thursday, dozens of conservative national security experts warned that Mr Trump is unfit to be commander in chief. That showing bolstered his case to be the party’s Trump alternative, even as rival Florida Sen. Trump did not elaborate on his Ryan comment.

Donald Trump gives a press conference on Super Tuesday 2016. Both Trump and Clinton won in seven states Tuesday night. It takes an outright majority of delegates to win the nomination.

Party strategists cast March 15 as the last opportunity to stop Mr Trump through the normal path of winning states and collecting delegates.

While a Republican split widened between Trump supporters and the party’s more establishment mainstream, Democrats showed increasing cohesion as Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, won seven states on the way to regaining her status as the inevitable nominee. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson all but ended his bid Wednesday, saying he would skip the debate and declaring he did “not see a political path forward”.

Clinton was assured of winning at least 457 of the 865 delegates at stake on Super Tuesday, while Sanders picked up at least 286 delegates.

“That might keep Donald Trump from getting to (1,237)”, Cary told CTV News Channel.

Only nine states award delegates winner-take-all.

On Thursday, Trump said Romney “was begging me” for an endorsement that year.