Deny him nomination, Donald Trump warns GOP will lose his voters

With super PACS running multiple ads slamming him and Mitt Romney poised to denounce him, the Republican establishment is going full out to stop Donald Trump before he clinches the GOP presidential nomination.

Neither Ted Cruz nor Marco Rubio appear able to stop his momentum, but 35 states have yet to weigh in on the contest.

“I am not being treated properly,” Trump complained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “I brought in millions and millions of people to the Republican Party, and they’re going to throw those people away. And I — I’ll be honest Joe, whether I ran as an independent or not, those people will never go out and vote.”

Trump was referring to the record turnout that has been happening in the early GOP primaries and caucuses, on a par with the participation of Democratic voters in the historic Barack Obama-Hilary Clinton contest in 2008. Trump appeared frustrated that the media haven’t acknowledged an aspect of his candidacy.

“Obama did a great job then, and this is an even bigger number. The number of people going into the Republican Party is an even bigger number as the number that went in — in the past — went in for Obama and to the Democrats,” Trump said.

“So this is a huge story, and it’s really the big story. Now, they focus on Romney, who’s, you know, just trying to stay relevant, but the biggest story out there by the people that really understand it is the fact that the Republican Party is gaining millions and millions of people, and you saw that with South Carolina, you saw that with Nevada.”

Excerpts from Romney’s speech in Salt Lake City were distributed by news outlets early Thursday. The 2012 GOP presidential contender is expected to call Trump “a phony and a fraud” whose promises are “as phony as a degree from Trump University.”

Trump dismissed the comments in advance as the rantings of a loser:

“He was a catastrophe. And I watched this happen, and I wasn’t happy about it, and neither was anybody else. We backed him, and I helped him and raised money for him, and I did everything, but he didn’t do the job, he didn’t have the capability to do the job. And he certainly hasn’t gotten any better. As far as other things are concerned, we are — you probably see what’s happening, I mean, the biggest story in all of politics isn’t so much what’s going on with Mitt Romney, it the fact that the Republicans are gaining millions and millions of people because of me.”