Donald Trump crushed his rivals on Tuesday, handily winning Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii and dealing body blows to Ted Cruz and John Kasich — as well as a Republican establishment desperate to stop him.

Cruz managed to score one upset, winning in Idaho. But the math was on Trump’s side. The real estate mogul’s victories added dozens of delegates to his increasingly dominant lead in the march up to the big winner-take-all contests in Ohio and Florida next week.


It also served to squash fervent hope among anti-Trump forces that his losses to Cruz last weekend signaled lasting vulnerability.

“It’s just something very special,” the Manhattan billionaire said in his victory speech. “I hope that the Republicans will embrace it.”

Trump easily took Michigan, grabbing nearly 37 percent of the vote and 25 delegates, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Kasich and Cruz were battling for second and 17 delegates each — but combined they accounted for 50 percent of the vote in a state with 59 delegates to dole out.

In Mississippi, Trump took more than 47 percent of the vote, denying Cruz another Southern state.

And in Hawaii, Trump trounced them all again — not only beating Cruz and Kasich in a state they weren't expected to win but leaving Marco Rubio in third place and in danger of netting zero delegates on the night.

During a long, triumphant speech after the results, Trump ambled through a variation of his stump speech and took a swing at the Republican-allied groups that have spent millions of dollars against him.

"I want to thank the special interests and the lobbyists," he joked to supporters gathered in Florida, where Trump is making his next big push to knock his next target — Rubio — out of the race.

Michigan amounted to an ugly defeat for Kasich, who once banked on the state as his first step toward must-win Ohio.

Now, still winless, the Ohio governor is under pressure along with Rubio, whose poor showing Tuesday simply adds to a narrative of a campaign on life support — frustrating establishment Republicans who recognize they are running out of time and options.

“The attack ads have not hurt him,” Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist on George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, said of Trump. Dowd said Tuesday’s results show Trump can win “anywhere.”

Case in point: Trump’s victory in Mississippi was especially painful for Cruz, who had heavily courted evangelical voters in the deeply conservative South and has already lost Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee to Trump. Cruz also had come into Tuesday with momentum after winning Maine and Kansas on Saturday.

Cruz’s win in Idaho, which Trump had been expected to take, offered a silver lining for the Texas senator. But with just 32 delegates in play, it didn’t appear Cruz’s take would do much to dent Trump’s lead.

In his victory talk, Trump looked past his primary opponents to call Hillary Clinton “a very flawed candidate” and offer kind words for congressional Republicans he had mocked in the past.

He said it was important “that our senators and that our congressmen get reelected,” an indication that he’s well aware of GOP fears that their chances in down-ballot races could be hurt with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Trump also praised House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has on at least two occasions criticized the GOP front-runner, in particular for his incendiary calls to ban Muslims from the United States.

“He called me a couple of days ago. He could not have been nicer,” Trump said. “I have great respect for Paul Ryan.”

With his victories on Tuesday, Trump appears well on his way toward clinching the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination. Anti-Trump Republicans, including 2012 party nominee Mitt Romney, have been hoping to at least have a contested convention.

Perhaps no one was more deflated Tuesday than Rubio, who, despite a string of endorsements from prominent Republicans and an uplifting life’s story, has failed to capture the hearts of voters.

Having won just Minnesota and Puerto Rico, and their 133 delegates plus a smattering of delegates from other contests, the Cuban-American Florida senator thought he had a good shot at winning the caucuses in Hawaii, where 19 delegates were up for grabs. But his poor showing in Mississippi and Michigan locked him out of any delegates in the two biggest delegate offerings of the night.

Rubio has spent much of this week batting away rumors that he’ll drop out before Florida, where he’s trailing Trump in the polls. He told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that he is “100 percent” not dropping out before next Tuesday’s big Florida vote.

Rubio also told supporters that the candidate who wins Florida's GOP primary next week will go on to win the Republican nomination for president.

“I need your help,” Rubio said at a rally in Ponte Vedra, Florida. “I believe with all my heart that the winner of the Florida primary next Tuesday will be the nominee of the Republican Party.”

Still, it’s hard to imagine how Rubio can chart a path to the nomination. Even snagging all 99 of Florida’s delegates doesn’t guarantee a solid challenge to Trump.

Kasich, too, is under pressure and running out of excuses.

He had dismissed his losses in the primary's first 20 contests by calling them “away games,” but it’s tough to make that claim in Michigan — a state the Ohio governor once said he needed to win to secure his path forward. Even if he wins Ohio next week, a loss in Michigan is another troubling sign for a candidate struggling to appear nationally relevant.

But former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu shrugged off Trump’s strong finish in the Midwestern state. “It’s about winning delegates,” he said. “And tonight, John Kasich is winning far more delegates than anybody thought he would.”

In a speech to supporters in Columbus, Ohio, Kasich said he was ready for next week’s contest. “We are going to win the whole state of Ohio and it will be a whole new ball game,” he said.

Adding to the drama Tuesday night was the fact that the candidates were largely flying blind. Michigan had been polled extensively, but Hawaii had gone unsurveyed.

And the few polls taken in Idaho and Mississippi were outdated, having been conducted before Trump’s weekend struggles and the GOP establishment’s attack on Trump, which included a blistering speech by Romney. The real estate mogul also struggled in a pair of debates where his rivals ganged up on him.

Kyle Cheney, Daniel Strauss, Nolan D. McCaskill, Manuela Tobias, Patrick Reis and Eli Stokols contributed to this report.