Saturday Open Thread [3.5.16]
National—Ipsos/Reuters–Clinton 54, Sanders 40
National—Ipsos/Reuters–Trump 41, Rubio 20, Cruz 16, Kasich 10
Kansas—Trafalgar Group–Trump 35, Cruz 29, Rubio 17, Kasich 13
Michigan—Trafalgar Group–Trump 42, Cruz 20, Kasich 18, Rubio 14
Eric Levitz at New York Magazine argues that even a poor debate showing may not slow Trump down:
Have you heard the old fable about the pundits who cried “peak Trump?” If you haven’t, here’s the Cliff Notes: Once upon the 2016 campaign cycle, political commentators would cry out after nearly every GOP debate that Donald Trump had finally done himself in. And so, when the Republican front-runner finally had a truly damaging debate performance in Detroit on March 3rd, no one believed the columns that said so.
Okay. That’s not a fable, just one scenario for how the aftermath of Thursday night’s debate might play out. Donald Trump has had some rough moments on these stages, but never before has the mogul taken so much fire from so many directions.
It was the first Friday of the month yesterday, and that means new jobs numbers. Jared Bernstein:
Payrolls were up 242,000 last month and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.9% in another solid jobs report from the the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job gains over the prior two months were revised up slightly, adding 30,000, such that the average monthly gains over the past year were well above 200,000 (223K, to be precise). The closely watched labor force participation rate ticked up to 62.9%, as over 500,000 entered (or re-entered) the labor force, another sign of improving conditions.
Dan Balz: “Can anyone credibly suggest that the Republicans put their collective best face forward on Thursday night? At a time when the party is in crisis over the possibility that Donald Trump will become the nominee, the debate did next-to-nothing to make Trump or his three remaining candidates look or sound presidential.”
“Designed to define candidates’ differences, the debates have become tedious and repetitious rather than enlightening or illuminating. No new information was imparted, no truly new arguments advanced. Even the insults were tiresome.”
Politico: “According to Republican consultants and political observers from Tallahassee to Orlando to Tampa to Miami, there’s virtually no evidence that Rubio has the robust campaign in place that’s needed to shrink — let alone overcome — Trump’s lead, which ranges from 7 to 20 percentage points, depending on the poll. For weeks, his team hasn’t blanketed known early voters with mail, and they weren’t calling Republicans statewide until just a few days ago.”
Florida. His home state. And he has no plan to win it. Has there been any candidate so lauded as Rubio flamed out so brilliantly?
Nate Cohn: “[Donald Trump] could [be unstoppable] even do so without wins in Ohio and Florida, the two largest winner-take-all states, where he faces opponents in their home states.”
“Mr. Trump would amass so many delegates because the rules become more biased toward candidates who win, allowing him the chance to take an overwhelming share of delegates with just a minority of the vote. It becomes easy to win lopsided delegate margins starting March 15, when states are allowed to apportion their delegates on a winner-take-all basis. At the same time, the primary calendar doesn’t become less favorable and may even become more advantageous to him, depending on which candidates stay in the race.”
Jonathan Chait: “While the nation is transfixed with the spectacle of whether the Republican Party will nominate a racist demagogue who wants to repeal Obamacare and cut taxes for the rich, or a traditional conservative who wants to repeal Obamacare and cut taxes for the rich, it’s worth pausing to take note that Obamacare continues to make things much better.”
“In particular, in addition to surprisingly and historically low rates of health-care cost inflation, today the Department of Health & Human Services announces that a net 20 million people have now gained access to health insurance.”
New York Magazine: “A private poll Bloomberg conducted in late February showed Trump rapidly losing support from mainstream Republicans after being mocked by Rubio as a con man, retweeting a Mussolini quote, and refusing to immediately disavow the KKK…. The same poll showed Bloomberg pulling far more votes from the GOP side than the Democrats.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Obviously, the map [for the Senate with Trump as the nominee] gets much worse for Republicans. This moves four additional Senate races — Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania — toward the Democrats, and others would become more competitive. Ohio would be a toss-up, while Democratic odds could also improve in places like Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. As unlikely as it seems at present, perhaps even a Senate institution, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, could find himself in unexpected trouble, particularly if Republicans find their opposition to holding a vote, or even hearings, on President Obama’s eventual nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is unpopular.”
“Under this scenario, we could see the Democrats winning at least 51 Senate seats, with several others in the realm of the possible. The Republican ‘Trumpmare’ is a Democratic Senate to go along with a third straight Democratic term in the White House.”
Under a Trump and Supreme Court Obstruction Scenario, Democrats win Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Illinois, Colorado and Indiana. That would give Democrats an 11 seat pickup, and a 57-43 majority.
NBC News: “The delegate math is becoming increasingly clear: The March 15 Florida and Ohio contests will determine if Donald Trump is the sure-to-be Republican nominee or if there’s a contested GOP convention. And there doesn’t appear to be any other possibility, given that the nominee needs to win 1,237 delegates to win a majority.”
Here’s the delegate math:
If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, he needs to win 50% of remaining delegates, which is more than doable as both Rubio and Kasich would likely drop out after losing their home states.
But if Trump wins Florida but loses Ohio, he would need 57% of the remaining delegates. And if Trump loses both Ohio and Florida, he would need to win 66% of remaining delegates to get to 1,237 — and that could be a hard climb.
FiveThirtyEight: “The effort to stop Trump may no longer call for consolidation around one alternative; it’s now a multifront war led by multiple candidates and disparate factions of the party with the singular aim of preventing Trump from winning 1,237 delegates.”
Rick Klein: “But make no mistake about what that would mean: That would be the Republican Party burning itself down in order to save itself.”
Rick Klein: “The Republican Party isn’t all that divided, actually. After Tuesday night, the GOP looks remarkably united — behind someone who happens to divide. If you judge the party by its voters, as opposed to its leaders, the Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump. With at least five wins Tuesday, and running against a still-divided opposition, Trump is taking control the old-fashioned way: by getting more votes than the others. Republican voters want an outsider who ‘tells it like it is’ and will build a border wall and ban Muslims from entering the country. They may not have known they wanted those things until Trump landed on the scene -– but that’s the point of a candidacy that is shaking a major party’s foundations.”
“Super Tuesday provided convincing evidence that Trump’s appeal extends across Cracker Barrel territory and well into Whole Foods land… Two states where Trump romped — rolling up some of his biggest margins yet — tell that story.”
Matthew Continetti: “Donald Trump has become the Republican frontrunner because GOP primary voters want an outsider who is angry at the condition of the country and the party establishment. And yet, GOP officials are so frightened of the transformation of the party under Donald Trump that they want the remaining candidates to stay in the race to deny him a majority of delegates and force a contested party convention in July.”
“Doesn’t this strategy prove exactly the point that Trump supporters (and to some extent Cruz supporters) are trying to make? You have a party in the midst of historic change, and your strategy is to deny that party’s voters the right to nominate their preferred candidate? And you think this will help you win in the fall? My mind reels.”
Ed Kilgore on the primaries and caucuses we have today and tomorrow: the Louisiana primary, the Maine caucuses, the Nebraska Democratic caucuses, the Kansas caucuses, the Kentucky Republican caucuses, and the Puerto Rico Republican primary.
On the Democratic side, FiveThirtyEight gives Hillary Clinton the same 99 percent plus chance of winning Louisiana as it gave her in South Carolina, which isn’t surprising because it has a similar African-American majority in its primary electorate and Clinton’s carrying that demographic by a similar 5-1 margin in recent polls. In much-whiter Kansas and Nebraska, Sanders is favored, though not overwhelmingly; even though these are technically closed caucuses, they are like Iowa in that independents and Republicans can change their affiliation at the caucus site. Maine is assumed to be big-time Bernie Country. He could use some bragging rights about now, though any loss in the caucus states will be cited as a sign of waning strength.
Anyone wanting to follow returns from all these events is going to have to be patient. Probably the first returns to come in on Saturday will be from Kansas Republicans, who end their caucuses at 2 p.m. CST. Kansas Democrats begin caucusing at 3:30 p.m. CST. Kentucky Republicans (expecting a low turnout in an unusual caucus arranged strictly for the convenience of former presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul) will end their voting at 4 p.m. local time (EST and CST). Nebraska Democrats and Maine Republicans will caucus at locally determined times ranging from mid-morning to early evening. In Louisiana polls will close at 8 CST. On Sunday Maine Democrats will spread their local caucuses around from 1 to 9 p.m. EST, and in Puerto Rico polls will close at 3 p.m. EST. Then we all have to wait two more days until four more Republican events and two more Democratic primaries are held.
Sanders will win the three caucuses and Hillary will win the Louisiana Primary.
