Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
Let those words sink in. It does me no pleasure to write them. They are, however, true. The results from Super Tuesday have put multiple nails in multiple coffins around politics. Those coffins enclose the remains of the Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Carson campaigns, and there’s one being crafted right now for the GOP itself. Trump could not have had a better night on Tuesday, even if he had won every state.
Trump, as of this writing, has won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont. Cruz has won Oklahoma, Texas and Alaska, and Marco Rubio has won Minnesota. Kasich and Carson were blanked, although Kasich came relatively close in Vermont, coming in second and losing to Trump by a mere 1,400 votes.
This is the best possible outcome for Donald Trump. Ted Cruz winning not only Texas but also two other states ensures that he will remain in the race as long as possible, and it will give his supporters the needed morale-boosting wins he hasn’t gotten since Iowa and take the sting out of losing South Carolina – a race he should have been more competitive in, given his base. Rubio, on the other hand, explodes Cruz’s #1 talking point of being the “only one in the race who has beaten Donald Trump and can beat Donald Trump.” Rubio’s better-than-expected results in Virginia will allow him to point to the fact that in one of the most purple states – and a must win state for Republicans in the fall – he was the non-Trump candidate who outperformed expectations. Cruz, on the other hand, in Virginia got walloped, underperforming the last polls and not winning a single county or city anywhere in the Commonwealth.
Kasich’s near miss in Vermont, coupled with Ohio looming on March 15 will keep him in the race. Last night, on WCHV, Kasich’s Virginia director Bret Coulson made clear that Kasich views the next round of states, including Ohio, as his firewall and that he is poised to do much better. There was no talk of getting out, and nobody expects Kasich to get out before Ohio, even if he gets offered a deal as somebody’s VP.
Carson’s campaign is over, and his no-better-than-forth place showing in every single state isn’t going to be enough to bring him the money he needs, given his high burn rate and his lack of a strong base of support in any upcoming states. When he does get out, the bulk of his support will likely be split among the remaining candidates. The outsiders and evangelicals are likely to go to Trump, given Cruz’s shenanigans in Iowa. The folks who appreciated his tone may go to Kasich. The rest will be split between Cruz and Rubio. Not enough to make much of a difference. And his eight delegates aren’t enough to make a difference to anybody at this point.
The delegate math is becoming clearer, as well. Right now, Trump has 315 pledged delegates, while Cruz and Rubio combined only have 311. Cruz has 205, and Rubio 106. Trump is over 25% of the way towards the 1,237 delegates needed to win on the first ballot at the GOP Convention.
At this point, given the results of Super Tuesday, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich are each unlikely to get out and take one for the team. All three are going to be pointing at the others and demanding they end their races to help stop Trump but refusing to consider getting out themselves, and in doing so, they will be pulling a Three Stooges routine that will end up with Trump waltzing into Cleveland with enough delegates to put an end to any talks of a brokered convention.
It’s time now for those of us in the GOP who do not believe they can support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee to start figuring out next steps. There does not appear to be a way to stop him at this point, and the party is likely going to fracture in the next few weeks in a way that will leave the mainstream media and the Democrats giddy with excitement.
How the party can recover from Trump’s victory is a question I can’t answer, and I doubt recovery is even possible. Trump, as a candidate, represents the antithesis of most Republican values and that’s not something those of us who care about the Party more than any one individual can square.
The Democrats shouldn’t gloat very long. The one thing Trump has demonstrated is that he blows away the conventional wisdom, and the belief that Hillary will easily beat him is farcical at best. Given the Democratic party’s inability to address the concerns of working class and labor voters, those votes are ripe for the taking and the populist rantings of Trump will appeal to them. Trump has demonstrated an ability connect with those voters in a way that Hillary cannot. And given Hillary’s victories last night, she will be the Democratic nominee. Whatever votes Trump loses from the GOP establishment, he can likely make up from pulling working class Democrats to his cause – something he’s already trumpeting in his claims to have “grown the Republican party.”
This race is over. At this point, given the unlikely prospect that the three remaining egos will do the right thing and coalesce around a single anti-Trump candidate, it’s every GOPer for himself. House and Senate members need to start taking steps to insulate themselves from Trump (or hug him, depending on how well gerrymandered their districts are) and try to figure out a Plan B.
One thing is certain – we are in uncharted waters now. This has literally never happened before.
