National—ABC News/Washington Post–Trump 34, Cruz 25, Rubio 18, Kasich 13.
BUT!!! In hypothetical two-way matchups, Cruz leads Trump by 54% to 41% and Rubio leads Trump by 51% to 45%.
Could it be? Have we finally reached Peak Trump, where he begins to fade and then collapse? The New York Times: “Mr. Trump had a rough week. He faced attacks from the party establishment and criticism for his debate performance on Thursday before barely outpacing Sen. Ted Cruz on Saturday in Kentucky and Louisiana, and losing to him in Kansas and Maine, where Mr. Trump was considered a favorite.”
“But it is not clear whether he struggled to win because he had lost ground or because anti-Trump voters had consolidated around Mr. Cruz… The outcome on Tuesday could be telling. If Mr. Trump were to replicate his Super Tuesday performance, he would take about 35% of the vote in Michigan and 42% in Mississippi. If he were to lose significant ground from last week’s vote, it could present an opening for one of his rivals.”
Politico: Is Trump peaking? We’ll find out today.
National—NBC News/Survey Monkey–Trump 38, Cruz 20, Rubio 18, Kasich 9
National—NBC News/Survey Monkey–Clinton 55, Sanders 38
Florida—SurveyUSA–Trump 42, Rubio 22, Cruz 17, Kasich 10
Florida—Monmouth–Trump 38, Rubio 30, Cruz 17, Kasich 10
Ohio—PPP–Trump 38, Kasich 35, Cruz 15, Rubio 5
Ohio—PPP–Clinton 56, Sanders 35
Illinois—Chicago Tribune–Trump 32, Cruz 22, Rubio 21, Kasich 18
Michigan—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Trump 41, Kasich 23, Cruz 18, Rubio 8
Michigan—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Clinton 61, Sanders 34
Michigan—Monmouth–Trump 36, Kasich 21, Cruz 23, Rubio 13
Michigan—Monmouth–Clinton 55, Sanders 42
Michigan—Trafalgar Group–Trump 41, Kasich 23, Cruz 23, Rubio 8
New York—Siena–Trump 45, Rubio 18, Kasich 18, Cruz 11
New York—Siena–Clinton 55, Sanders 34
Idaho—Idaho Politics/Dan Jones–Trump 30, Cruz 19, Rubio 16, Kasich 5
Idaho—Idaho Politics/Dan Jones–Sanders 47, Clinton 45
Chris Bowers, of Daily Kos and formerly of OpenLeft and MyDD, talks about the delegate math prior to tonight’s contests in Michigan and Mississippi. His conclusion: for Bernie to have any chance, any chance at all, he must win Michigan tonight.
[T]he math looks pretty bad for Sanders right now.
After Michigan (Clinton up 18 in the polling average) and Mississippi (Clinton is up 44) tomorrow, Super Tuesday 2 is on March 15. Clinton has a double-digit lead in all March 15 states where there are polls, and a 20-point lead in most.
According to current polling, Sanders will need to win 59.2% of all remaining pledged delegates after March 15 in order to pull out the narrowest of all victories–even in a superdelegate-free world.
And how does he do that? Hard to see it. After Clinton is likely to pad her lead a little on March 22. Sanders is likely to dig into it a bit on March 26, and then again in Wisconsin and Wyoming on April 5 and 9th, respectively.Then, however, there is the big, big New York primary on April 19. This is a closed primary in an older state where African-Americans and POC make up a large percentage of the Dem electorate. Clinton lives here, and was elected to the Senate from here twice. Obviously, a very good state for Clinton.
After New York, one week later on Super Tuesday 3 comes CT, DE, MD, PA and RI. Lots of older populations, closed primaries, diverse electorates. Really, just a terrible combination for Sanders.How bad is the April 19-26 stretch for Sanders? According to the current chart, after the April 26 states vote on Super Tuesday #3, it is likely that Clinton will have enough combined pledged and superdelegates combined to claim the nomination on that day.
Further, after April 26, she would only need 28% of the remaining pledged delegates in order win a majority of pledged delegates. She would need an even lower percentage to win a majority of the national popular vote (Sanders is currently getting more pledged delegates than his vote totals would suggest because he is cleaning up in caucus states).
In other words, in addition to clinching the nomination, she will have also cinched winning pledged delegates and the popular vote on April 26. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she declares victory that night.
So, that’s the current delegate math. How does Sanders turn it around? About all I can see is this: win Michigan. That is the sort of shock upset he needs to upend this race before Super Tuesday 2 on March 15 all but salts it away ahead of the April 19-26 finale.
Here is his Pledged Delegate spreadsheet.
The GOP Establishment is now rooting for a contested convention. Washington Post: “In private conversations in recent days at a Republican Governors Association retreat here in Park City and at a gathering of conservative policy minds and financiers in Sea Island, Ga., there was an emerging consensus that Trump is vulnerable and that a continued blitz of attacks could puncture the billionaire mogul’s support and leave him limping onto the convention floor.”
“But the slow-bleed strategy is risky and hinges on Trump losing Florida, Illinois and Ohio on March 15; wins in all three would set him on track to amass the majority of delegates. Even as some party figures see glimmers of hope that Trump could be overtaken, others believe any stop-Trump efforts could prove futile.”
Michael Bloomberg, “who for months quietly laid the groundwork to run for president as an independent, will not enter the 2016 campaign,” the New York Times reports, “citing his fear that a three-way race could lead to the election of a candidate who would imperil the security and stability of the United States: Donald Trump.”
Bloomberg said that Trump has run “the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears.” He added that he was alarmed by Trump’s threats to bar Muslim immigrants from entering the country and to initiate trade wars against China and Japan, and he was disturbed by Trump’s “feigning ignorance of David Duke.”
So essentially, he just endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Rebecca Traister imagines a Clinton/Trump race:
Clinton’s South Carolina speech, which emphasized racial unity and a message of peace, love, and understanding, forecasts how she plans to frame her campaign in opposition to the bombastic demagogue who trades on anger and prejudice. But it also points up just how much they are running in two separate elections, to be president of two different countries. Trump is running in the country that is in the midst of a dramatic and terrifying backlash to the social movements of the past 50 years; Clinton herself represents the very victories of some of those movements and is seeking to modestly stabilize their gains. In the end, this may be an epic, gory battle between those who are threatened by the changing face of power in America and those who are doing the changing.
Usually, the more optimistic and hopeful campaign wins, especially when the economy is good (which it is) and when presidential approval is good (which it is, as Obama is over 50% approval).
Trump is causing more Latinos to complete the citizenship process so that they can vote against him. The New York Times: “Over all, naturalization applications increased by 11 percent in the 2015 fiscal year over the year before, and jumped 14 percent during the six months ending in January, according to federal figures. The pace is picking up by the week, advocates say, and they estimate applications could approach 1 million in 2016, about 200,000 more than the average in recent years.”
Foreign diplomats are expressing alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
“Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia have complained in recent private conversations, mostly about the xenophobic nature of Trump’s statements… The three officials declined to disclose a full list of countries whose diplomats have complained, but two said they included at least India, South Korea, Japan and Mexico.”
“U.S. officials said it was highly unusual for foreign diplomats to express concern, even privately, about candidates in the midst of a presidential campaign. U.S. allies in particular usually don’t want to be seen as meddling in domestic politics, mindful that they will have to work with whoever wins.”
Sen. Sanders was spot-on in his comments about gun manufacturer liability/PLCAA https://t.co/nDjEerjkgB #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/jEScbMDFt4
— NRA (@NRA) March 7, 2016
The most unwanted endorsement in all history.
Jonathan Chait on the real reason conservatives fear Trump: “People get worked up during presidential campaigns. But the rise of Donald Trump has provoked conservative intellectuals to express their dismay in existential tones. Conservative writers have used terms like unmitigated, unalloyed, potentially unsalvageable disaster to describe a Trump nomination… Marco Rubio has made this kind of talk the lingua franca of his once relentlessly chummy campaign, warning that the Republican Party ‘would split apart’ were Trump to prevail. Trump’s opponents have planned for the kinds of dire, schismatic responses not seen in generations of American presidential politics: using the party’s summer convention, normally a scripted infomercial, to wrest the nomination from him. Or even bolting the GOP to start a third party.”
“The fear inspired by Trump is not merely that he would blow the party’s chances of winning the presidency (though he probably would), or even that he would saddle it with long-term damage among the growing Latino bloc (though he would do that as well). It is that Trump would release the conservative movement’s policy hammerlock on the Republican Party.”
First Read says Trump needs to win Ohio and Florida: “After five Republican contests over the weekend, Donald Trump has just an 87-delegate lead over Ted Cruz, 392-305. And as one plugged-in GOP rules expert tells us, that lead is probably narrower than that. Why? Well, 112 delegates (representing 9% out of 1,237 needed for the nomination) are unbound because there is NO statewide presidential vote — like in Colorado. This all underscores, once again, how important the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio on March 15 are to Trump’s path to 1,237. They aren’t luxuries, they’re necessities.”
Rick Klein says Ted Cruz is becoming the Establishment Choice: “What if the establishment lane was never open for business in the first place? What if the problem wasn’t traffic problems, or a Bush in the road, or that fancy boots got stuck in sticky pavement? With Chris Christie and Jeb Bush gone, and Marco Rubio and John Kasich left scrambling to win their home states, Republicans are facing the prospect of seeing Ted Cruz emerge as their main alternative to Donald Trump. That may be a prospect less likely than Trump as frontrunner: Cruz could wind up being the establishment’s actual choice in a winnowed field.”
“Trump can be beaten – his most recent showings suggest new and continuing vulnerabilities – though not by just anybody, it would appear. By all appearances, Rubio has only gotten weaker from attempts by the party’s elected leaders and money folks to rally behind him. Cruz needs to be careful what he wishes for, on a couple levels. Asked about a contested convention, Cruz said on CBS that powerbrokers choosing a nominee at a convention would be ‘illegitimate’ and ‘wrong.’ We’ll see how he feels as we get closer to Cleveland.”
David Brooks: “It’s 2 a.m. The bar is closing. Republicans have had a series of strong and nasty Trump cocktails. Suddenly Ted Cruz is beginning to look kind of attractive. At least he’s sort of predictable, and he doesn’t talk about his sexual organs in presidential debates!”
“Well, Republicans, have your standards really fallen so low so fast? Are you really that desperate? Can you remember your 8 p.m. selves, and all the hope you had about entering a campaign with such a deep bench of talented candidates?”
As Jason and I have said all along, Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee.
Nate Cohn says Cruz is absorbing all of the collapsing Rubio’s support: “There was a big shift in the Republican race over the last few days: Ted Cruz surged, almost entirely at Marco Rubio’s expense.”
“The Cruz surge was the clearest sign yet that Donald Trump might indeed be at a disadvantage in a one-on-one race. Viewed that way, Saturday was a bad night for Mr. Trump. Not only did the primaries and caucuses that day suggest he could lose if the field dwindled to one opponent, but the results also probably made a one-on-one race more likely by elevating Mr. Cruz at Mr. Rubio’s expense.”
“But not all is gloomy for Mr. Trump. The results made it likelier that he would face a candidate, Mr. Cruz, with serious limitations in the blue states that dominate the second half of the primary season.”
