I have been hearing rumors that there are folks here in Virginia who would normally support Ted Cruz, but are thinking of voting for Marco Rubio instead because they think he is the most “electable.” Well, it’s time for some hard truths about the Florida Senator. Marco Rubio CANNOT win the White House. He can’t even win the nomination, and here’s why:
Rubio is the establishment candidate. Rubio has been crowned as the establishment’s last, best hope to win the nomination and keep the status quo in Washington. Yet in every primary that has been held this year, at least 65% of the vote went AGAINST the establishment candidates. The anger at the establishment is what is fueling the electorate and the rise of Donald Trump, and they are simply not going to rally around the establishment candidate. Marco may think that the more endorsements he gets, the better he will do, but with every endorsement by every establishment politician, it gets worse and worse for him.
Marco Rubio’s theory of winning counts on Ted Cruz and John Kasich leaving the race, thinking that he would pick up all their support. The problem with this is that most of Ted Cruz’ supporters WILL NOT support Rubio. Ted Cruz is firmly against amnesty and illegal immigration, and his supporters are not going to back a candidate that is pro-amnesty. It is much more likely that a large chunk of Cruz supporters will switch to Trump If Ted Cruz ever suspends his campaign, Trump’s nomination is assured.
Rubio can’t win a single primary state – not even Florida. There is not a single state on the map where Rubio is leading Trump. Rubio had everything going for him in South Carolina and Nevada and he couldn’t close the deal. In South Carolina he had Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Trey Gowdy, and the entire GOP State apparatus stumping for him and he tied with Cruz for second. In Nevada, the entire GOP establishment was pulling for him, and again he tied with Cruz for second.
The news doesn’t get any better in his home state. Current polling shows Rubio losing Florida to Trump by about 20 points. There is a reason why Rubio decided not to run for re-election to the Senate, and it’s not because he wanted to focus on running for President. How can anyone make the argument that Rubio is “the most electable candidate” when he can’t win a single state? Don’t forget, no candidate has ever won the GOP nomination without winning either Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina.
Rubio’s is counting on a brokered convention. After Rubio’s disastrous performance in New Hampshire, his campaign manager told the AP that Rubio’s best chance at the nomination would be in a brokered convention. Later, the Rubio campaign gave a presentation to establishment donors pitching the brokered convention scenario as the best chance to win the nomination. If the establishment was somehow able to award the nomination to Rubio after never winning a single state, the uproar from the grassroots would be deafening.
If you are going to nominate somebody other than Donald Trump, you are going to have to nominate a candidate that brings Trump’s supporters back to the party. Rubio is not that candidate, and he especially couldn’t do it if he snatched the nomination out from under everyone in a brokered convention.
So if you are thinking about voting for Rubio this Tuesday because of the “electability” issue, remember that this is the same type of thinking that gave us Bob Dole, and John McCain, and Mitt Romney. How’d those electable candidates work out for us?
24 comments
I’m from Texas, and am proud to call Cruz my senator. But I don’t think Cruz can win. I’m not sure Rubio can win the nomination, but I’m almost positive Cruz can’t. He’s not doing well enough in the South to rack up wins, and he won’t have the same support in the Midwest and Northeast. Cruz is recreating the Huckabee/Santorum coalition from the last couple of cycles, and that doesn’t go very far.
Rubio’s certainly got issues, but I think we’re forgetting that he was one of the original Tea Party candidates back in 2010. Aside from Immigration, he’s incredibly conservative. So I think it has to be Rubio (he’s got the money now, and more support than Cruz, and his new routine of savaging Trump is working). Some Cruz voters might go for Trump, but not many, because most of Trump’s supporters are not actually very conservative, ideologically speaking. They don’t really pull from the same demographics.
Focus on the prize. We’ve been out of power for 8 years, and we’ve forgotten how important that is. Rubio would be the most conservative president since Reagan, easily. That’s got to count for something.
Ask those Tea Party groups in Florida what they think of Rubio now. Ask Phyllis Schlafly what she thinks of Rubio after she was one of the first people to endorse him for the Senate.
Cruz is the only candidate that can pull Trump voters back to the party. Rubio can’t do it. Kasich can’t do it. Rubio can’t win a single state, and now that Jeff Sessions has endorsed Trump, it will give all those conservatives across the country political cover to go to Trump if Cruz ever suspends his campaign.
Sacrificing your principles for electability is how we get candidates like Dole, McCain, and Romney. Cruz has the best chance to unite the party and win back the White House.
You raise a legitimate problem with Rubio in that he’ll have trouble uniting the party, and I do admit that Cruz can probably keep more voters from defecting from Trump. I’m not trying to say that this is a perfect solution, and I see problems with pretty much ever candidate’s path to the nomination.
But you didn’t address my point that Cruz has virtually no path forward. I’d be quite happy with Cruz as the nominee, but I simply think that’s very unlikely. Cruz is this cycle’s version of Huckabee, or Santorum; the evangelical-base candidate that can’t win outside of Iowa and the South. That’s not a winning coalition. Rubio may not have an easy path to the nomination, but Cruz basically has none. I don’t like it, but there it is.
The electability issue is tough, and the line between good prudence, and just selling out, can be very fine. Sure, establishment RINO’s that don’t appeal to the base aren’t worth our time. But there’s a flip side where putting too much emphasis on purity shoots ourselves in the foot. I remember doing voter-turnout stuff as volunteer for senate races in 2010. We had several winnable senate races (Missouri, Nevada, etc) where we lost by nominating candidate who were “perfect” on the issues, but just plain bad candidates.
As far as Dole, McCain, and Romney…who were the “better” candidates those cycles? Those were crap for us.
Cruz is leading Texas and Arkansas, and is close in Alaska, Oklahoma and Minnesota. If Rubio and Cruz are able to bring Trump down a peg or two with their combined assaults, it is more likely to help Cruz, since a former Trump supporter deciding whether to back Cruz or Rubio is going to back Cruz.
So let’s say Cruz wins big in Texas, then wins 3 or 4 other states. Suddenly Cruz is either tied or in the lead with delegates. Then it is a whole new ball game.
At that point there is big pressure for Rubio to drop out. Half of Cruz supporters would go to Trump is Cruz drops out, but half or more of Rubio’s supporters would go to Cruz if Rubio drops out.
Rubio can’t even win his home state. The idea that he is going to beat Trump anywhere is just wishful thinking. The only way you stop Trump is with Rubio dropping out and backing Cruz. Cruz can’t beat Trump with Rubio cutting into his support and Rubio can’t beat Trump with Cruz out of the race, when half of the Cruz supporters defect to Trump and put him up around 50%.
If Cruz wins three or four other states along with Texas, then I’ll definitely switch to Cruz, and quite happily. But I think that’s wishful thinking at this point. Arkansas is a big stretch, and the most likely scenario is that he only wins Texas. (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/national-politics/20160228-cruz-counting-on-texas-for-a-burst-of-optimism-on-super-tuesday.ece)
Cruz needs to clean house in the South, and he doesn’t look poised to do so. Trump’s been eating into his share of the evangelicals too heavily. And this is his firewall; he has to do well here or he’s finished. The Northeast and Midwest are not favorable to him. His coalition is the same as Huckabee’s and Santorum’s in ’08 and ’12, only with Trump poaching voters.
I don’t know that as many Cruz voters would go to Trump as you think. Cruz has the “very conservative” vote locked down, and is splitting the raw “anti-establishment” anger with Trump (not the same demographic). I’ve seen some conservative outlets that have been “Trump/Cruz only” start to back away from Trump in the face of his ridiculousness. Cruz’s voter’s aren’t monolithic potential Trump voters. For all that the media unfairly describes Trump as a product of the “extreme right,” he’s pulling in lots of protectionists, moderates, and non-traditional voters/independents. At the end of the day, the fact that you and I care about this so much as to be discussing it, puts us in a very small minority.
Rubio can compete in the Midwest, and especially with the big groups of white collar suburban voters in major cities (that’s where he beat Trump in SC). Let’s not count out Florida just yet, even if Trump is leading. There’s not a whole lot of polling there. Rubio also (like it or not) will have a lot more funding going forward.
Still, if the Establishment falls apart and tries to surrender to Trump (Christie, Sessions, le Page), I’ll join you in breaking out the torches and pitchforks. DC Republicans don’t know their ass-end from their ear-hole right now. They created Trump by trying to push Jeb on us, and now some of them don’t want to stand and fight for conservationism.
“Rubio can compete in the Midwest”
Tell me the state Rubio is leading in.
“Let’s not count out Florida just yet”
Two polls taken in Florida just last week show Trump +16 and Trump +20. If you are going to say that Rubio still has a shot in Florida, I can say that Cruz will win in Alabama and Georgia, and Tennessee, as well as the other states I listed on March 1st.
As for Cruz voters going to Trump, over in our other story there are poll numbers showing 46% of Cruz supporters going to Trump, while 44% of Rubio supporters go to Cruz.
http://www.thebullelephant.com/conservatives-must-unite-behind-cruz-now/
Rubio is in a Catch-22 situation. He can’t win with Cruz in the race, and he can’t win with Cruz out of the race. Thus the title of this post. Rubio cannot win.
Still have two weeks for Florida, and little good polling in the Midwest. But Rubio’s prior results in key urban counties project well for the white-collar demographics in the Midwest and Northeast he needs to win. As a primary candidate, he’s copying Romney’s coalition.
Cruz has two-days for the South. And of the two, Rubio has more media coverage right now, and stands to gain more momentum.
If Rubio loses big on March 15th, he’s finished. But Cruz could be on life-support right now. You still haven’t explained how Cruz could expand into the Midwest and Northeast.
We’ve only just started “really” attacking Trump; let’s see how conservative possible Trump supporters shift over the next two-weeks.
“Other than immigration…”
In case you have not noticed, illegal immigration IS the driving issue in this election!
Following right behind it is the issue of “Not selling out when you get to the Washington cartel, but instead keeping your promises and your integrity.”
Cruz beats Rubio hands down on both these issues. Though none of us have a crystal ball, I believe Mick Staton is right: Rubio cannot win.
Last I checked, Cruz was doing very poorly in the Deep South (even conceded Alabama this very weekend). How can we expect such a candidate to even think of being POTUS, when as a GOP candidate he’s not winning the conservative hotbeds?
Just today, the excellent Sen. Jeff Sessions endorsed Donald Trump. Trump is only getting stronger. Trump already knocked out the Bush dynasty this year, in November, he will be slaying the clinton crime family as well. We hope you will join us.
Trump will be ripped to pieces by the Democratic machine. They will pound the rubble with attack ads calling him racist, bigot, sexist, and corrupt. Not to mention a corrupt rich Republican (and they know how to attack those). Doesn’t matter if it’s true, that’s what they’ll do. The big swath of middle-of-the-road independents will be turned off by this. It will happen, and it will not be pretty.
You nailed it.
I won’t join you. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, if Donald Trump is the candidate I will not vote for him.
I won’t violate my morals and principles by voting for Trump. It will not happen.
If Rubio is “Establishment” it means conservatives have won.
If being pro-amnesty, pro Trans-Pacific-Partnership, pro-Omnibus spending bills, and only showing up to work half the time is now considered conservative, then it means the Establishment has won.
With all due respect, anyone in either House of Congress in a Presidential contest won’t have a good attendance record. If Cruz wins the nomination he won’t have a good record either. Rubio’s is no different from others (or either party) who have been in the same position.
As far as free trade is concerned, many Republicans are for it as trade agreements open foreign markets to American goods and increase economic activity, leading to job growth. I did not like the Omnibus spending bills, but that was also a problem in the House under Boehner, not exactly something Rubio or Cruz could do something about. It looks like Ryan is reforming the process (finally!)
Thank you! I keep thinking this. Has Rubio been “changed” somewhat by being in Washington? Sure. But there’s no doubt he’s still very conservative, and his instincts will be to govern as a conservative. He’s got to be the most conservative candidate we’ve had since Reagan, easily.
We’re so agitated about Trump and angry at the establishment that we’ve forgotten just how much the base has actually wrenched the consensus within the party further to the right. Yeah we’re not finished yet, and immigration remains a problem.
But pork-barrel earmarks have been drastically reined in. We managed to prevent massive tax hikes under Obama (in January 2009 if someone told us that Obama would have 8 years and only modestly raise top rates, we’d be amazed). We prevented the massive defense cuts that Liberals usually ram through.
Up against Rubio and C-ruse T-rump has never looked so good. The only time it will be better for him is when he faces Hillary.
By good, do you mean as a good punching bag?
Who got punched last evening. You know what they say about candidates with small delegate counts don’t cha?
That Trump has less than Rubio and Cruz combined, and that he was supposed to do a lot better than he did according to polls, forecasts, pundits, and everyone else?
Lost ten points on the polls in VA, TX, OK, and almost as much in AR. And the punching has just begun. Looking forward to tonight.
“Cue Rocky Music.”
yo, punchy?
Trump can’t get more than a third of all primary votes? He can’t be excited for tonight’s debate. Are we ready to hear more about how he defrauded thousands of people with Trump U, and how he likes to hire foreign workers? I look forward to Cruz and Rubio continuing to rip him apart.
The establishment always rolls out the “most electable” and that’s how we elected Romney, McCain and other losers. How about just once, we vote for the best candidate? Novel, I know!
Voting for the best candidate! What a novel concept!