Editor's note: Dr. Terry F. Buss is a fellow at the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration. He wrote this article exclusively for Tuoi Tre News.

Donald Trump is well on his way to winning the Republican Party presidential nomination from competitors Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and minor candidates John Kasich and Ben Carson, having won seven primaries this Tuesday, to be added to his earlier wins in Iowa, Nevada, and South Carolina. 

Primaries upcoming in two weeks in Michigan, Florida and Ohio will likely seal the deal for Trump one way or another. But Rubio and Cruz will fight to keep this from happening.

Hillary Clinton on the Democrat Party side is also well placed to win her party’s nomination having won seven states, against four wins for Sanders in Vermont, Oklahoma, Colorado and Minnesota.

Sanders is well-financed and can surely put up a fight to deny her the nomination, but his chances are slim. The next two weeks are also critical for both.

The Republican Party nomination battle

First, let us talk about the cast of characters.

Donald Trump, a billionaire real estate developer and television entertainer (The Apprentice), entered the race for U.S. presidency in June 2015. He has no political experience.

Trump is running as an anti-establishment, anti-Republican Party candidate capitalizing on widespread dissatisfaction with the Barack Obama presidency and the ineffective response of the Republican Party leadership to Obama.

He is also running as an effective business manager rather than as a politician.

On top of that, Trump’s campaign is grounded in demagoguery, personally attacking his opposition without really focusing on public policy issues.

Ted Cruz is a first term (six years) U.S. Senator with limited public service. He rose to fame as a Tea Party, anti-Republican Party establishment candidate. The Tea Party was formed to oppose Obama’s reckless spending, which added more than $6 trillion to U.S. debt over seven years.

Cruz is an “arch-conservative” responsible for shutting down the U.S. government in 2014 in an effort to force Obama to control spending. And he represents Evangelical Christians—they try to convert people into following a strict interpretation of the Bible—vote which is very conservative. He is the son of Cuban immigrants.

Marco Rubio is a first term U.S. Senator also with limited public service. He represents the Republic Party establishment in Washington, willing to compromise with Democrats often to the detriment of congressional conservatives. He is also the son of Cuban immigrants.

Trump leads Cruz and Rubio in public opinion polls, often by substantial margins. Last fall, Trump defeated Cruz and Rubio in the Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina primaries. Trump has become the force to beat. Republicans are running scared at the prospect of Trump becoming the Party’s nominee.

Rubio, in the past few days, has been tasked by the Republican establishment to attack Trump to try to deny him the Republican nomination. Millions were spent to derail Trump through caustic TV ads. But, Rubio’s vicious attacks on Trump only seemed to increase Trump’s support.

Rubio only won one primary, Minnesota, of the 13 primaries, calling into question his viability against Trump.

Nonetheless, major Republican establishment donors are committing $25 million in an effort to support Rubio and derail Trump’s momentum before the Michigan, Florida and Ohio primaries in two weeks. Many pundits believe that the establishment's response to Trump is too late, and Republicans are stuck with him.

Cruz won two states on Tuesday—Texas and Oklahoma—which, along with a previous win in New Hampshire, emboldened him to call for Rubio to withdraw from the race and throw his Republican establishment's support to Cruz.

Cruz has also asked two minor candidates, Ben Carson and John Kasich, to withdraw and throw their support to him. Cruz along with Rubio, Carson and Kasich's support could stop Trump. Imagine the level of dislike for Trump that would unite the Tea Party and Establishment.

Why are so many Republicans against Trump? In addition to his political style and “policies,” Trump’s approach has put into jeopardy the Republican control of the Senate.

If Trump persists, the Republicans will loose the Senate and the Democrat will be free to control the Congress. If Clinton wins, Democrats will control the nation for the next decade.

Clinton triumphs over Sanders

Hillary Clinton is a former “First Lady” wife to President Bill Clinton, and former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State under President Obama. Obama beat her in 2008 in his run to the presidency. She is one of the most controversial figures in U.S. politics. She has extremely low “likeability” and “trust” ratings with Americans based on her past performance in public life.

Bernie Sanders is an avowed socialist intent on transforming American into a socialist republic. He is unique in that he was only casually employed for the first 40 years of his life, and then served as a mayor, congressman and senator where he accomplished little on the record.

Clinton was the “presumptive” Democrat Party nominee for nearly two years, until Sanders came from nowhere to rise in the polls to become a worthy adversary.

Clinton won all but four of 13 primaries against Sanders, all but guaranteeing that she will be the Democrat Party nominee to run for the presidency in November. But Sanders' wins in Colorado, Vermont, Oklahoma, and Minnesota effectively keep him in the race for now. This is an annoyance for Clinton, because she will need to defend herself against Sanders, while preferring to go after Trump. This wastes resources.

Sanders is unlikely to prevail given the primary election road ahead.

The months ahead

The coming weeks promise to be the most divisive, vicious campaign for the presidency in U.S. history. Trump’s style is to attack opponents ruthlessly until they yield. There will be no diplomacy, no civility, no mercy. Ad hominine attacks will dominate.

But Clinton is no slouch. She is more than capable of attacking Trump in his own terms, and likely will do so. 

The ad hominine attacks feed right into the base support for Clinton and Trump. Unfortunately, Clinton’s strategy seems to be to polarize Americans into racial, ethnic, religious, gender, gender identity and class, while Trump’s strategy is to further these divisions. The country is very tense over this approach.

Rather than hearing from Trump and Clinton on vision, policy and goals, the campaigns will go “lite,” continuing to focus on negative messaging. This is not a good way for either candidate to start their presidency.

Even should Trump and Clinton stray into policy, much acrimony will ensue.

Clinton early in her campaign determined that she should run for president based on President Obama’s performance and record. She will take credit for Obama’s achievements and pledges to advance them. She is to be the savior of the Obama failed legacy. Unfortunately, most of America rejects Obama’s plans for the nation. So Clinton is ripe for attacks on both domestic and foreign policy failures.  

For Trump, his past political activities in many cases make him look very much like a liberal Democrat rather than a conservative Republican. To top it off, even these positions have frequently changed back and forth over the years. He will be in the cross hairs of Clinton.

Party conventions

Each party holds a convention or party conference before the November election to formally choose a candidate to represent them. Candidates are normally chosen based on votes received during voting in primaries.

On the Republican side, opinion against Trump is running so high that some establishment Republicans are considering rejecting the votes in the primaries now in progress, and choosing an alternate candidate during the Republican Party convention. This is of low probability, but a possibility. It would mean that the millions of Republican voters participated for nothing.

Were Republicans to abandon Trump at their convention, Trump would very likely leave the Republican Party and start his own “Third” party. In this case, the Democrats would win the presidency against a deeply divided opposition. Political unrest would be widespread.

On the Democrat side, even though Sanders did reasonably well in these primaries, he still faces immense challenges in the Democrat Party convention. The way it works is that primary votes are translated into delegates who vote for candidates in the convention.

In addition to these votes, there are several hundred “super delegates” made up of party leaders and activists who also have a vote on the nominee. Unfortunately for Sanders, the vast majority of super delegates are committed to vote for Clinton. This outcome will severely alienate Sanders supporters further fragmenting the political system.

This presidential election campaign is shaping up to be the most divisive since the 1960s.

In an era of global turmoil in which Obama has retreated across the board in foreign affairs and pursued an unpopular agenda to transform America, the last thing the U.S. needs is extreme political unrest. Sadly, after spending a billion on the 2016 election, Americans have little positive to show for it.