Well, the fascist has won a plurality in the SC GOP primary. The good news is 2/3 of South Carolinians voted against him; margin < expected.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
FNC commenter says where does Cruz go from here? SC tailor-made for Cruz. Two weeks ago,Trump was leading by 18. Cruz and Rubio fighting #2.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Jeb Bush has just dropped out of the race. Great, classy candidate; wrong last name, wrong cycle.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
FNC said that 77% of the South Carolinians who thought "telling it like it is" was most important went for Trump.Trump is merely unfiltered.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
I will say I was surprised to see the thrice-married, foul-mouthed Trump win a plurality of the evangelical vote. Why, Cruz?— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Trump is in a state of denial. In his victory speech, he argues he'll win a chunk of voters from departing candidate. Very few, polls show.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Rubio and Cruz have been swapping second all night. With 93%, Cruz is behind by 0.3%--which matches RCP average of latest polls.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Cruz had a tough week, from Trump's character attacks to the Gowdy endorsement kerfuffle to Gov. Haley's endorsement of Rubio. Almost #2.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Cruz may end up with no delegates; it doesn't look like he carried any county, including the northern border evangelical counties he wanted.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Let's point out since late July, Trump has won every SC poll except one where Carson nosed him by 1%. I saw a couple of polls showing Rubio or Cruz within 5 points over the past week, I thought Trump's bad debate performance a week ago and other unforced errors, like his dispute with Pope Francis over immigration walls, might backfire. After all, there were reports that a large plurality of voters indicated they could change their preferences, so the key is what voters and how many. With less than 1% of the vote unsettled, Trump has 32.5%, which doesn't impress me much; the problem is that the conservatives tend to split the vote in SC, and Trump is not a conservative. He wins a huge percentage of the centrist/liberal vote. What most people don't seem to remember is that Trump has been within this 25-35% range for some time now, while the field has narrowed from 17 to a half dozen.On Trump's hubris on winning over supporters from former candidates,he is very few voters' second choice & he wins few late-deciding voters.— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 21, 2016
Let's be clear: Donald Trump is the frontrunner and is a strong position to win up to Super Tuesday. I don't think he'll run the table. I think Cruz will hold his own on Super Tuesday. What Cruz needs is to place while the herd thins; on a previous post I mentioned that 1 on 1 Cruz beats Trump by 12 points or so. Cruz has won one gold and 2 bronzes (with 1% left to count), while Rubio has a silver and a bronze. I think Rubio needs to pull off a victory. I suspect he'll pick up most of Bush's support. Tonight's silver may help him recapture momentum.
I knew within 5 seconds of Jeb's concession speech that he was going to withdraw. I'm sorry to see him leave, but when he dropped to single-digit share several weeks back, he was done. When he had to resort to bringing his brother to campaign for him, the writing was on the wall. He's probably been the most consistent debater;,he was classy to the end and probably the most effective critic of Donald Trump
