Donald Trump won his second primary in a row, taking first place in South Carolina with 32% of the vote. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finished in a virtual tie for second with just over 22% of the vote apiece. After that, the drop off is precipitous, with Jeb! Bush coming in 4th at 7.8%, John Kasich at 7.6%, and Ben Carson at 7.2%.
Bush sent a message to the candidates below him in the lower tier when he immediately suspended his campaign during his concession speech. When the guy who finishes ahead of you drops out of the race because he knows he can’t win, what does that say about your chances?
Trump’s numbers dropped from 35% in New Hampshire to 32% in South Carolina, giving more evidence that he has a ceiling of support that he is currently bumping up against. As the field continues to narrow, that number will not be enough for him to continue to win. As other candidates have dropped out of the race, their voters have gone to everyone else BUT Trump.
Ted Cruz spent significant resources here, but was also pounded mercilessly by both Trump and Rubio. While a stronger showing would have been preferable for his campaign , a tie for second shows that he continues to be the viable alternative to Trump. Cruz is still positioned the best for the SEC Primary, but he is going to have to really have a good showing on March 1st. By not being able to distance himself from Rubio, people will start to question whether his ground game is as good as his campaign believes it is.
Marco Rubio has reason to be happy, but there are also big concerns he needs to face. The good news is that he finished with his highest showing of the campaign, tying Cruz for 2nd place. The bad news is he had the endorsements of the popular Governor, Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and Congressman Trey Gowdy, he had the entire GOP state apparatus working on his behalf, he outspent Cruz while spending millions to attack his character, and the best he could do is finish tied with Cruz. If Rubio cannot have a breakthrough performance while everything is going his way, how is he going to do it anywhere else? Remember, no candidate has ever won the nomination without winning either Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina.
Finally, the results in SC demonstrate what many people have suspected for awhile now. This is a three man race for the nomination, with the three remaining viable candidates presenting a fairly clear choice between them.
The establishment is firmly behind Marco Rubio who they feel gives them the best chance to maintain the status quo in Washington. If you like the way things are running in Washington DC right now, Marco Rubio is your candidate.
Donald Trump represents the polar opposite choice from Rubio. Trump represents the “burn it all down” philosophy. His supporters don’t care that he is not a conservative. They don’t care that he is not even a Republican. They are mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore. If you hate both parties, and you want to throw ALL the bums out, you are voting for Trump.
Between these two stands Ted Cruz. Cruz represents an end to corporate cronyism in Washington and a return of power back to the states. He represents returning the party to a consistent conservative form of governance where GOP policy actually resembles its party platform. If you are sick of the status quo, and want a candidate who you are confident will nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court to defend our Constitutional rights, Ted Cruz is your guy.
This is the most important presidential election most of us will likely face in our lifetime. Let’s hope we don’t blow it.
UPDATED: If this doesn’t send the signal that Marco Rubio is the Washington Establishment candidate, nothing will. The Huffington Post is reporting that Mitt Romney will be endorsing Rubio for president. That’s right. The guy that gave us RomneyCare and four more years of the disastrous Obama presidency is grabbing Marco Rubio in a big, squishy establishment bear hug. Conservatives looking at Rubio as their guy might want to start thinking twice.
UPDATE #2: Marco has woke the sleeping Trump giant. Trump had been training all his fire on Cruz, but now he has decided to give Marco a piece of the “Trump Treatment” and see how he likes it. On the Sunday shows, Trump questioned Rubio’s eligibility to be President. Enjoy the attention Marco.
13 comments
Well, I think the message is loud and clear. Folks are sick and tired of politicians pandering and giving pork to their special interest friends. Go to Loudountaxpayer.com to read about the latest Republican disappointments. Oh, and Fauquier Free Citizen has an interesting open letter to Dick Black. http://fauquierfreecitizen.com/6110-2/
Ted Cruz is all but ” the viable candidate alternative to Trump ” Mick.
Go back and look at all Romney Coal Mine Rallys Pics and video those men care less about Romney then. Now try to excite those men to vote for Cruz after all that has been beating in thier hearts is for work , wages , America and of today Trump.
It is time for Ted Cruz supporters to sit back and ponder are you threatend by the plastic , poll created , candidate Rubio.
There is still room aboard Train America , Trump !
Trump currently holds 61 delegates, 11 for Cruz and 10 for Rubio. On Feb 23th the Nevada caucus award an additional 30 delegates, were Trump is currently polled as the heavy favorate. Then comes Super Tuesday nine days later (leap year this year) awarding 628 delegates. At this point a little over 32% of all Republican delegates will have been awarded. A common misconception of Super Tuesday is equating it with the SEC primary. Super Tuesday states include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Polling is rather thin across the board here but what little that does exist tends to follow the Trump trend lines. What has been dubbed the SEC primary – after the Southeastern Conference in college sports contains a high proportion of religious conservatives in the south. Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma each have a high percentage of evangelical Christians where Cruz might feel confident of the demographics, except for the fact that Trump pulled significant evangelical Christian support in SC in achieving his 10 point win. Finally, there is Texas and one would expect Cruz to do well in his home state with it’s 155 awarded delegates but remember under Republican party rules designed to prevent early states exerting undue influence on the process, only those voting after 15 March are allowed to award all their delegates to the winning candidate. It’s the worst of wishful thinking to expect Cruz to carry the majority of Texas’ 155 delegates and it just won’t happen.
I am assuming and I believe correctly that regardless of Rubio’s Super Tuesday performance he will be staying in the race long term based on his new Republican establishment role as the 2016 Mitt Romney. So looking at the factors and being in my opinion rather generous we might be looking at something like a Trump 447, Cruz 186, Rubio 107 delegate breakout post March 1st. This is in my opinion is rather bad news for Cruz as the remaining primary schedule through March 15th (including the big two Florida and Ohio) don’t play to Cruz’s base and in fact look more upside for Trump challenger Rubio rather then Cruz but regardless Trump currently is polling ahead in both of these states. Post March 15th will have seen over 61% of the delegates awarded and the race in hand. So to deny Trump the nomination the key dates for me are March 1st and Cruz’s shot and March 15th and Rubio’s shot. After that if no significant breakout has occurred it’s Trump’s nomination. I frankly don’t place a high probability on either of these breakout events happening based on the facts to date.
If Trump wins every state on March 1st, then it is essentially over, but that is not is going to happen. The more he is challenged, the smaller his coalition becomes, and he is not going to be able to concentrate his efforts on a single state after Nevada.
Cruz has the infrastructure in place to wage a multi-front campaign and the money to wage it with. Rubio is low on funds, and now has to go hat-in-hand to the establishment power brokers that were backing Bush, hoping to get the money he needs to stay on the air. Trump’s weakest point is his ground game, so it will be interesting to see how he does when they focus is so spread out.
If Cruz can win 4 to 6 states, while placing second in many of the others, it will solidify his place as the anti-trump. If Rubio can’t win any states on March 1st, he needs to drop out.
We are far past the value add of solidifying the anti-Trump role this is now all about delegate count and if Cruz can’t make significant break through on Super Tuesday he is done. I’m not considering 4-6 majority state delegate wins, I’m just talking about one, which I don’t see him accomplishing either (including Texas). Trump is steadily building his lead in the proportional state delegates and a string of second place finishes at plus 20%, which at least qualifies Cruz for a few delegates, is not going to move him forward to the nomination.
Once past the March 15th date and into the winner take all primaries if Cruz is not at least very close delegate wise to Trump he will have no chance. Rubio’s shot will only materialize post March 15th and his delegate issue will be the winner take all nature of those contests many of which he would have to win outright to move into contention a scenario I just don’t see happening. I would not be surprised to see both Cruz and Rubio remaining in the race deep into the primary season if not until the very end so Trump’s often touted 30% postulated fatal poison pill will likely not even come into play as the competition continues to collect drips and dabs through the conclusion of the contest.
By the way this theory is so far in the realm of opinion and there is no conclusive evidence or facts one way or the other to maintain that Trump would be constrained by this percentile. As I have stated before even if Rubio did drop out post March 1st (which isn’t going to happen) to assume that support would roll over to Cruz is just stretching credulity. It’s just as likely (and perhaps more so) to accumulate in the Trump base.
I disagree. We will not be past solidifying the ant-trump role until after March 1st, and possible March 5th, when the rest of the South votes. I have already said that if Trump runs the table on March 1st it is over. I say he won’t do it, you say he will. You are basing things on months old polling data when there were 10 and 12 candidates in the race. We are now down to 3 viable candidates.
I have also pointed out that as more candidates have dropped from the race, Trump’s support has stayed steady or declined. There is NO evidence that he is gaining support from anyone else’s supporters. Trump’s campaign style has made it so that the only people still supporting him are the ones that are invested, and even some of them keep peeling away the more stupid things he says.
In a two way race, Trump loses badly to both Cruz and Rubio. When one of them is gone, the other will become the nominee. Right now they are playing a high stakes game of chicken to see which one has a better claim to be the “anti-trump.”
I think you must be accurate in your description of Trump voters. He just won SC after a week in which he praised Planned Parenthood, came out for the health care mandate, accused George Bush of lying about WMDs, and sugggested Bush should have been considered for impeachment.
There is NOTHING Trump can do or say that will dissuade his supporters. We need to finally abandon the idea that if Trump is outrageous enough Republicans won’t nominate him. They will.
Unfortunately that’s true. However, quite a vireo Conservative figures are saying that they won’t vote for him. Which speaks highly for their character.
Ironically enough, Trump supporters are screaming that’s betrayal even though they’ve said they won’t vote for anyone but Trump.
One thing about Rubio that isn’t often discussed is his missed votes. Why? Busy? Some of the bills – like the omnibus – are really big bills. Makes me wonder what his bundlers want him to do , how to vote…they are clearly lining his pockets. I think he’s disingenuous. Sounds good, but no substance. Sadly, I don’t think he’d be much better than Hillary – Rubio would be a more articulate President, but a velvet knife nonetheless. I don’t care for Trump, but I do understand where his supporters are coming from. We have ALL the people who voted for Obama both in 2008 and 2012 to thank for Trump’s domination in the polls. That is the bottom line.
Three-way race? Hardly….As people drop out, Trump will gain ground, especially if he softens his tone and begins to sound more reasonable and more presidential.
He was given a pass to miss those votes so he could still try to claim he is just as conservative as Cruz. Unfortunately, he is now going to end up wearing the “Establishment” name tag, and that will not be a boon to his campaign if you ask me.
Mick,
Your analysis that Trump is the outside candidate and Rubio is the establishment candidate is spot-on.
I disagree with the argument Trump has a ceiling in the mid to low 30’s which will drop as other candidates withdraw. The converse must be considered. Rubio, the establishment candidate, couldn’t muster 25% of the vote.
My armchair analysis is that there is a tremendous undercurrent of anger in the electorate. It reminds me of Ross Perot in 1992. This anger is driving the Trump campaign.
I believe the dynamic of the campaign will be the contest for 2nd and 3rd place between Rubio and Cruz for the next several weeks. Until there is a clear winner between Rubio and Cruz, Trump will continue to prevail, perhaps by smaller margins.
Correction. Cruz is the real outsider candidate. Trump is the “burn it all down” candidate. Trump has never shown that he can attract new voters to his campaign. His tactics of insulting and demeaning his opponents effectively locks his support in at the people who started with his campaign, and every time he says something stupid, he inevitably peels away some of that support.
The comparison to Perot is a good one. I have said before that what we are seeing now is what would have happened if Ross Perot ran in the Republican Primary in 1992. But you have to remember, that Perot would not have won. In a two man race, Bush beat Perot every day of the week.
With the field narrowing, and the establishment rallying to Rubio, it could have the unintended effect of peeling some conservative support away from Rubio and onto Cruz. Time will tell. Similarly, if Cruz is able to win 4 to 6 states on March 1st, while Rubio can’t ever finish higher than second in any state, it is going to punch a big hole in his “electability” argument.
Time will tell.