Donald Trump calls for 'one-on-one' with Ted Cruz

Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast, AP GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday called for a...

The two leading candidates in the race for the Republican presidential nomination are calling on fledgling rivals to clear the field and posturing for a long tense contest.

In victory speeches Saturday night, both front-runner Donald Trump and runner-up Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called each other out by name and signaled their intention to fight until the race's end.

The candidates' opposing battle cries signaled no harmonious resolve for an already divisive GOP race, that has split the party into enthusiastic Trump supporters and those desperate to prevent the mogul's ascent to the nomination. Cruz is seeking to court the latter group as he presents himself as the Republicans' only alternative to Trump.

"I would love to take on Ted one-on-one. That would be so much fun," Trump told an audience Saturday night in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he also called on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to end his campaign. "I want Ted one-on-one."

The comment comes amid a flurry of anti-Trump money flooding the remaining primary states, and suggestions that the party's only chance to beat Trump is to maintain the crowded primary field, preventing Trump from claiming a majority of delegates and inducing a brokered GOP convention, thus allowing delegates to re-vote for the party nominee.

But if the other candidates, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Rubio, abandon their bids, then either Trump or Cruz will be left with a majority of delegates. Most current projections lean strongly towards Trump. So a one-on-one race would likely do the mogul well.

Cruz has also pushed the notion of a two-man race. In his Super Tuesday victory speech, he called on Rubio to drop his campaign. And at recent speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference and on the campaign trail in Idaho, he pitched his campaign as "the only campaign that can beat Donald Trump."

"If you want to beat Donald Trump, we have to stand united as one," he said Saturday night at a campaign speech in Idaho.

He also said at CPAC that Republican Party elites had a "master plan" to induce a brokered convention and pick a nominee beside himself or Trump, which he asserted would prompt a "revolt" among voters.

.@tedcruz at @CPAC: if "the establishment" induces a brokered convention "we'll have manifest revolt on our hands all across this country” — Dylan Baddour (@DylanBaddour) March 4, 2016

About half the states have voted in the GOP primary, giving Trump 384 delegates and Cruz 300, with about 1,240 needed to win the nomination and 1,585 remaining.

The race should take its final shape on March 15, when the home states of Kasich and Rubio will vote. Their victories in those states will likely provide fuel for the candidates' campaigns, sucking delegates from the two front-runners and increasing the likelihood that no one claims an outright majority.

If Kasich and Rubio lose their home states they will probably end their campaigns, clearing the field for the one-on-one race that Trump has called for.