My Reaction to Yesterday’s Election Results

Okay, we have the answers to my six pre-election day questions from yesterday. Let’s take a look.

1. Who wins Nevada? Clinton
2. Does Cruz or Rubio come in second place in South Carolina? Rubio, by about a thousand votes.
3. Assuming he wins, does Trump get more than a third of the vote or more like a quarter of it? He actually got exactly a third.
4. Does Bush do better than Kasich or not, and does he exceed expectations? They both got eight percent, although Bush got a little over a thousand more votes, coming in fourth place to Kasich’s fifth. This does not exceed expectations for Bush.
5. Does Kasich knock Bush out? Yes.
6. Does Carson call it quits? No.

So, what did I say that these things would mean?

On Sanders losing Nevada:

…Sanders is the underdog and he has a huge superdelegate disadvantage. He needs to disprove the common wisdom that he can’t compete in racially diverse states. And he appears to be far behind in South Carolina, so he can’t afford to lose the momentum he gained from his blowout win in New Hampshire. A loss in Nevada, no matter how narrow, will be a potentially lethal outcome for his campaign.

On Cruz and Rubio:

I was uncertain who would finish second, but said if I had to bet money that I’d place it on Cruz. I lost that bet. Rubio had some rough moments at the end of the campaign in South Carolina, and it probably hurt him. But it didn’t hurt him enough to cost him second place, which was realistically what he was going for. This is enough for Rubio to largely recover from his robotic debate performance in New Hampshire, although few people will actually forget that fiasco and it will continue to plague him. A deep dive into the numbers in South Carolina are very worrying for Ted Cruz. He did not show the strength he needed to among evangelicals, and this calls his whole southern strategy into question.

On Trump exceeding or falling below expectations:

He basically met the regular polling expectations and exceeded the expectations set by the exit polls. Winning a third of the vote in six-way race is impressive, but will he pick up any of Bush’s eight percent as he predicted he would in his victory speech? My prediction is, no, he really won’t pick up any significant percentage of the Bush vote. The big news is that Trump won everywhere and is likely to get every single delegate out of a state that awards its delegates proportionately. This makes his 33% finish much larger than it seems, and way larger than Sanders’ blowout win in New Hampshire. It was a huge night for Trump, and the delegate haul is important. On the other hand, because he won’t be getting much of the Bush vote, his job will get a little harder going forward.

On Kasich knocking Bush out:

I wrote about this more than once. Kasich’s campaign team told anyone who would listen that they didn’t expect to do well in South Carolina and that the only reason they were spending time there was to poach enough Bush voters to cause him to finish poorly with the hope of knocking him out of the race. Here’s what I wrote on Monday:

I was watching the Halperin/Heilemann/McKinnon campaign reality show The Circus on Showtime last night. They talked to Kasich’s chief strategist John Weaver, and Weaver told them that Kasich knows that he doesn’t have a chance of winning in South Carolina or even of doing particularly well. He’s campaigning there, Weaver explained, almost entirely to poach as many votes as he can from Jeb Bush so that Bush cannot recover and get any traction. Kasich wants to contribute to delivering the knockout blow to the Bush Clan so he can have the “happy warrior” lane to himself in the Midwest. If Kasich can win his home state of Ohio, which is winner-take-all, he’ll be in business.

Despite going after Bush without mercy, Kasich is in position to sweep up Bush supporters. He will have to share them with Rubio, however, and we’re talking about a personal pizza here rather than dividing up an 18-inch pie. On Saturday, John Weaver told the Washington Post that there was another benefit to knocking Bush out.

Asked how to justify what is expected to be a fourth- or fifth-place finish in South Carolina, Weaver said, referring to Bush, “We’ve already won there, because how well we do is going to help drive somebody else out of the race.”

“Our expectation is that, come early next week, after so many governors and former governors have run, that John Kasich will be the last one standing,” he added.

Weaver was right. Kasich is the only remaining candidate with true executive experience in government. He and Rubio are the only remaining candidates from true swing states, which is something the Republican’s convention in Cleveland could conceivably highlight.

On Bush dropping out of the race:

On Carson not dropping out:

I said Carson’s only job was to avoid finishing in last place. He failed. I said that I didn’t really see how it mattered either way. I still don’t. But his refusal to drop out is the best signal yet that he’s arranged things so he can take his campaign contributions and launder them through friends and associates to whom he gives absurdly lucrative contracts. His campaign is a gravy train and he has no incentive to get off of it.

My summary:

BIG WINNERS: Trump and Clinton
MODEST WINNERS: Rubio and Kasich
LOSERS: Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders
MASSIVE LOSERS: Jeb Bush and Ben Carson