Today, for reasons that escape me, Nevada held its Democratic caucuses (Republican ones are on Tuesday), and South Carolina held its Republican primary (the Democratic one is in a week). I’m sure there’s a very good reason for holding these events on different days in the same state, but …
Anyway, Trump won SC, and Hillary won NV. Jeb! had another poor showing, and has just announced that he is dropping out of the race. So, what did we learn?
- The Republican results continue to verge on catastrophic for those looking to stave off a Trump nomination. He won NH convincingly; he’s doing the same in SC despite his incendiary remarks there about 9/11, the Pope, and pig’s blood (nope, not kidding). It’s early, but so far it looks like a solid (10-12 points or so) win for Trump, followed by Rubio and Cruz in a tight battle for second place. Furthermore, because of the way delegates are allocated in SC, Trump is likely to walk away with almost all of them.
- Trump won moderate voters in NH; he is apparently winning evangelicals in SC. He maintains substantial appeal across GOP primary voters.
- Adding to the Republican disarray, even though Jeb!’s out, one can expect Kasich to stay in at least through the delegate-rich, winner-take-all Ohio primary on March 15, since he wasn’t expected to do very well in SC anyway. If he does, it remains at least a four-man race, which helps Trump a lot.
- On the Democratic side, Hillary desperately needed a win in NV, and she got one, though it was closer than had been predicted (53-47). According to caucus “entrance polls,” Sanders did unexpectedly well among Latino voters, beating Clinton by a few points; Clinton slaughtered Sanders among African-Americans. If that pattern holds, she stands to do well in South Carolina next weekend.
- What’s next for Bernie Sanders? A win would have been enormously helpful for him today, but he didn’t get it. He’s very unlikely to get one next weekend, and Super Tuesday is rough terrain for him (with a couple of bright spots – he’ll win VT of course, and he’s up in the latest MA poll).
Please share widely!
I just like writing Jeb!
What a huge fail.
And now he’s officially out.
and people really do not like Cruz.
SC was supposed to have been at least a speed bump for the Trump juggernaut, where evangelicals would turn up their noses at this vulgar New Yorker. But Cruz is coming in third; what’s his strategy now?
Seem increasingly likely this will go all the way to the convention. In that case, where’s the incentive for anyone who stands to win delegates, like Kasich, to drop out before that?
So probably Rubio versus Kasich mano a mano: pass the popcorn.
Jeb! Dropping out before Fla is bad news for Trump. I expect Carson is gone soon too — and suddenly 30-33% won’t win as many states.
Unless you think at least 1 in 3 Jeb! Supporters have Trump as their #2…
maybe less for Rubio than for the others, but still. And I have long been skeptical of the idea that Trump wins this—that’s not what I said and you don’t have to sell me on that score.
But SC, where Trump was booed after baldly stating that 911 happened on Bush’s watch and that Saddam’s mushroom cloud was a deliberate falsehood to drag us into a disastrous war, validates his appeal in new ways.
And I think it makes a contested convention very likely, if not a brokered one.
They won’t go to Cruz or Trump. So do they go to Rubio who is probably better positioned to win but hated by Jeb! and his people for being the Kylo Ren of this field? Or do they go to Kasich who was close to Dubya and fits the moderate conservative swing state governor role? I don’t know, but it probably isn’t enough time to stop the juggernaut.
That you have derived as much joy from that exclamation point as you once did the zeppelin. It will be sad to see it go.
that he never got to really develop giant exclamation point icon for Jeb! to team up with his classic empty suit for the elder Bush and the Stetson-wearing giant asterisk for Dybya!
wanted Nevada to play a more prominent role & got the dems to move it up in front of South Caroline. Naturally, he was not able to exercise the same influence over the repubs.
If the Dems want a Democratic POTUS, they shouldn’t care what SC Dems think. NV Dems, on the other hand, could deliver 5 EVs, and it’s mix of ethnicities, unions, and other factors makes it far more relevant.
Of the first four contests, South Carolina is the only state whose electoral votes aren’t in play. It offers relatively little money, talent, or much of anything else for Democrats. Dems would be better off if it was after Super Tuesday.
Reid, Clinton’s people, and Sanders’ people rushed to get casino workers and other folks to the caucuses, in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday when many still worked. Why not a primary? It seems like it’s a self inflicted barrier. Good on the unions and both campaigns getting their people to the caucuses-turnout was high and the electorate was diverse in a way Iowa wasn’t. That said, wouldn’t a primary be so much easier?
From what I’m hearing turnout wasn’t nearly as high as in 2008, which is what Sanders would have needed. I have also seen quite a bit of anecdata to suggest the process was flawed. NV doesn’t have nearly the tradition and practice that IA does and some people who were interviewed by media did indicate they would have preferred a primary. I guess we’ll see on Tuesday if the GOP handles it any better.
In 2013 a bill, SB 212, was introduced to codify Nevada’s presidential selection process as a January primary. It had bipartisan co-sponsorship.
From what I can tell (and I find no definitive source), the Republicans in control of Nevada government objected on the grounds of the expense of such an exercise, and questions whether it would precede South Carolina. Thus the bill was not passed.