Protests help Trump ahead of primaries

In the latest opinion poll show that 22 per cent respondents think they are more likely to vote for Trump after the cancellation of his rally in Chicago.

“I love protesters. In fact, I think I must get my own protestors to my rallies… only then the camera turns to the crowd,” Donald Trump, Republican front runner in the presidential nomination race, has been telling his supporters whenever protesters interrupted his speeches. According to him, the media, “the most dishonest of all people”, would not show “the huge crowd” otherwise. He would then go on to claim that the crowd is 20,000-30,000 strong, when there would be 7,000-10,000 people usually.

Since there is no dearth of genuine protestors, Mr. Trump needn’t get his own protestors. But organised protests may only be helping Mr. Trump mop up more support, a new opinion poll conducted by the Monmouth University ahead of the crucial Tuesday primaries found. The protests that led to violence and cancellation of a Trump rally in Chicago make 22 per cent respondents think they are more likely to vote for him. Eleven per cent thought they might turn against Mr. Trump because of the protests, while it has not affected 66 per cent of the respondents. The same poll also shows Mr. Trump increasing his lead over Senator Marco Rubio in his home state Florida, from eight percentage points to 17 percentage points.

On Tuesday, five States, including Ohio where presidential candidate John Kasich is the Governor, will vote. Polls indicate a slight lead for Mr. Kasich, who hopes that a victory in his home State will propel him to be the key challenger to Mr. Trump. For Mr. Rubio, a defeat in Florida will in all likelihood end his campaign.

Sanders narrows gap Democrats also have five States voting on Tuesday and in three of them — Illinois, Missouri and Ohio — Senator Bernie Sanders has reduced his gap with front runner Hillary Clinton or even overtaken her, according to some polls. Ms. Clinton has more than twice as many delegates as Mr. Sanders. But a strong performance in these five States could keep the Senator in the reckoning for longer than Ms. Clinton would like. There will be 700 delegates to be won on Tuesday. Florida, with the largest number of delegates, is leaning towards Ms. Clinton, while Missouri, which leans towards Mr. Sanders, has the least number of delegates.