Florida—FOX News–Trump 43, Rubio 20, Cruz 16, Kasich 10
Ohio—FOX News–Kasich 34, Trump 29, Cruz 19, Rubio 7
Florida—UNF–Trump 36, Rubio 24, Cruz 16, Kasich 9
Florida—Quinnipiac–Trump 45, Rubio 22, Cruz 18, Kasich 8
Florida—Wash Post/Univision–Clinton 64, Sanders 26
North Carolina—WRAL-TV/SurveyUSA–Trump 41, Cruz 27, Rubio 14, Kasich 11
North Carolina—WRAL-TV/SurveyUSA–Clinton 57, Sanders 34
Ohio—Quinnipiac–Trump 38, Kasich 32, Cruz 16, Rubio 9
National—NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl–Clinton 51, Trump 38 | Sanders 55, Trump 37
Florida—CNN/ORC–Clinton 50, Trump 43
Ohio—CNN/ORC–Clinton 50, Trump 43
Amy Walter: “For many in Washington and the establishment class, being forced to choose between Trump and Cruz is like being forced to decide whether to chew glass or poke yourself in the eye with a needle. Both are painful and hard to imagine. But, that’s where we are. That said, as long as both Kasich and Rubio remain in the race, the anti-Trump vote remains splintered which gives Trump a real path to winning Ohio and Florida.”
“If Trump wins both of those winner-take-all states, denying Trump a majority of the 1,237 delegates is going to be very, very hard. Moreover, the idea that an insider, like Kasich or even Paul Ryan, could win a contested convention is hard to justify given the deep antipathy GOP voters have shown for traditional politicians.”
Jonathan Chait says the best attack against Trump is one his Republicans can’t and won’t deliver, but the Democrats will:
Ted Cruz, true to his paranoia, has charged that mainstream news outlets are sitting on a series of explosive reports about Donald Trump’s history, planning — as a nefarious plot to help Hillary Clinton — to unleash them only after Trump has secured the nomination. The accusation is almost certainly false. (“Almost” being a necessary qualifier, since one can’t prove a negative.) At the same time, Cruz’s charge reflects a broader truth. There are cutting charges that might sever Trump from his loyal base that have not seen the light of day. The thing is, Cruz and his fellow anti-Trump conservatives are perfectly aware of what they are. They have chosen to holster those attacks for reasons entirely their own. […]
There’s a devastating response to Trump’s message: He’s not planning to be greedy for us; he’s planning to be greedy for himself. The centerpiece of Trump’s domestic program is a massive tax cut that would mainly benefit fellow rich people:
The reason Republicans refuse to exploit this vulnerability is obvious — they all propose to do the same thing.
Not to mention that Trump will use his position to further enrich himself and his companies by pawning off all his wares on us. The official wine of the United States: Trump Wine. Public water? No. Trump Water. Steaks? Trump Steaks.
Nate Silver says Rubio never had a base of support: “Rubio… may be proving that there’s not all that large a market for what you might call an upscale or cosmopolitan conservative. Many voters in the near-in suburbs, Rubio’s best areas geographically, long ago left the Republican Party. Rubio might have the image to win them back — young, Hispanic, optimistic — but he doesn’t have the policies, being staunchly conservative on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Likewise, while Rubio appears to do well among nonwhite Republicans, there are very few of them voting in the primaries, and Rubio has turned away from the moderate immigration positions that once might have won him more Latino support.”
Lawmakers in West Virginia pass a bill to legalize raw milk. They celebrate by drinking raw milk. In a certainly unrelated coincidence, those same lawmakers are now suffering from severe stomach illnesses.
Joe Scarborough said the Republican Party has “shattered its brand,” Politico reports.
Said Scarborough: “Can we just stop for one minute and talk about how much the Republican Party has shattered its brand by comparing Democratic debates,” noting that the Democratic contests have been heavily focused on policy issues.
Republican debates, however, “focus on the size of hands, personal insults, the size of — suggestions about the size of body parts that we won’t even mention on this morning news show… The contrast is absolutely staggering, and as a Republican, I’ve got to tell you it’s extraordinarily depressing.”
In the Democratic debate last night, we finally saw the video that all us sane non-Bernie fanatics knew about. Josh Marshall:
That Cuba/Sanders video and that exchange is something that scares a lot of Democrats. You can talk about red-baiting and swift-boating type politics. And I’m sure there’d be no end of that. But Sanders comes out of what is a very counter-cultural strand of late 20th century American politics. I know because I sort of come out of it too, at least I grew up in it. There’s a lot that is very standard in that world that sounds very alien to a lot of American voters. This is a fact. Agree with it or not, it is a fact. I think many Democrats quite legitimately worry that by going through this history of statements Republicans would be able to disqualify Sanders with a significant number of voters.
That video is why Bernie Sanders can never, under any circumstances, be chosen as the Democratic nominee. He spoke glowingly and approvingly of communist regimes in Cuba and Central America. The Republicans will simply destroy him on it. And if you think it doesn’t matter, you’re incredibly dumb, with no experience with actually winning elections against Republicans.
The Washington Post poll reveals its internals to their poll yesterday showing Hillary beating Trump.
When Americans are asked who they believe would win if Clinton and Trump were the nominees, Clinton is the overwhelming choice, with 59 percent naming her compared with 36 percent choosing Trump. That is an increase of five points for Clinton since January.
About one-third of all Republicans (32 percent) doubt that Trump would defeat Clinton in November, up from 21 percent in January. Independent voters also are more bullish about Clinton’s chances against Trump than they were at the start of the year.
And look at 14% Republicans and the majority of Independents voting for Hillary. The lies that Hillary will be weak in a general as compared to Sanders is not supported by facts and reality.
Glenn Thrush with 5 good take-aways including:
Democrats don’t want the primary to end. Paradoxically, Clinton’s loss in Michigan in 2016 mirrors her big New Hampshire win in 2008. Obama, speaking to me during an “Off Message” podcast earlier this year, chalked up his defeat to buyer’s remorse: Voters, who had just handed him a campaign-changing victory in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, were in a hold-on-a-second, skeptical mood.
The difference is that Obama was viewed back then as the vanguard of his party’s ascendant progressive wing, and Clinton — who has adopted most of the left’s core positions — is seen as positioning herself as a prog. That may not be fair (especially on health care reform, where she was a pioneer), but it reflects the restive mood of the party’s base; there’s a sense among younger voters ignorant of Clinton’s long-haul history that she’s a me-too on issues of economic inequality and social justice compared to Sanders, an early adopter who languished in the wilderness because he was so, so brave and pure…
Momentum is important — so is money — and Michigan refills Sanders’ tank with both. But as Clinton’s campaign is reminding us by the minute, she actually gained delegates on Tuesday despite the shock-horror headlines. Sanders netted a modest nine pledged delegates in Michigan for his 1.5-percentage-point win, but she destroyed him in Mississippi, where she out-delegated Sanders by a whopping 32 to 5.