Continuing my series of post-primary take-aways, here are my thoughts on the results of yesterday’s Super Tuesday contests. Keep in mind that in assessing winners and losers, I am not looking specifically at who won the most states or delegates in this round. I’m looking primarily at how well each candidate did in advancing his strategic objectives.
Donald Trump: Slight loser. Yes, there is no denying that he won the bulk of the contests and delegates yesterday, and he is certainly the clear-cut winner in that regard. But his strategic objective was to win convincingly enough to be able to declare himself the prohibitive favorite and the race to be effectively over. He did not accomplish this objective. He lost 4 states and barely squeaked by in 3 others (AR – Trump 33, Cruz 31; VT – Trump 33, Kasich 30; VA – Trump 35, Rubio 32). Without John Kasich in the race, Trump very likely would have lost 7 of the 11 states in yesterday’s contest. Cruz and Rubio both did well enough that Trump cannot credibly argue that either of them should drop out or have no path to victory. That case can be made against Kasich (about which more below), but Trump won’t make that case against Kasich because Kasich remaining in the race benefits Trump. What Trump needs is majority wins, and he had none last night or in any race to date. In every single one of the 11 contests last night, the anti-Trump vote exceeded the pro-Trump vote, so Trump continues to win only because the opposition to him remains divided. As long as it remains this way, none of Trump’s opponents can beat him. Nevertheless, Trump will still have difficulty getting the 1,237 delegates that he needs to lock up the nomination, and he is unlikely to win the nomination at a brokered convention. It is for that reason that I classify Trump a slight loser yesterday in terms of his strategic objectives.
Ted Cruz: Yuge winner. Going into yesterday’s contests, the conventional wisdom was that this nomination contest had essentially become a two-man race between Trump and Rubio as the consensus candidate of the anti-Trump Republicans. Cruz blew up that narrative last night and vastly exceeded expectations, winning 3 states and coming within spitting distance of Trump in a 4th. And, importantly, one of the states he won – and won by a large margin – was his home state of Texas, which had the most delegates up for grabs. Cruz has changed the narrative to make this a 3-man race and maybe even a 2-man race that excludes Rubio.
Marco Rubio: Big Loser. I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter of Rubio since September, so it pains me to say this, but his performance last night was severely damaging to his campaign. His strategic objective was to perform strongly enough, especially in comparison to Cruz and Kasich, that he could make a compelling case for the other two to drop out of the race and consolidate around him. Rubio didn’t come close to achieving this objective. On the positive side, Rubio won one state (Minnesota caucuses) and vastly exceeded expectations in Virginia, coming close to pulling an upset victory over Trump after two polls last Friday showed Trump ahead by 13 points. But those were the only good points for Rubio on a night in which he came in 3rd in 7 of the 11 contests. (By contrast, Cruz won 3 states and came in 2nd in 4 other states.) The results of yesterday’s contests leave Rubio not only without a narrative that the other not-Trump candidates should rally to him but with an argument against him that he should get out and rally to Cruz. Rubio’s strategic objective going into Super Tuesday was to perform well enough to make the case that people should give him the support that he needs to win the Florida primary on March 15. It is highly questionable whether he achieved that objective and whether his supporters will stick with him. It is also highly questionable that Rubio can and will win the Florida primary, especially if, as expected, Gov. Rick Scott endorses Trump.
John Kasich: Yuge loser: Kasich did not win a single state and only broke double-digits in 2 New England states (Vermont and Massachusetts). He got 9% in Virginia, and in all of the other 8 contests he got a mere 6% or less of the vote. Kasich’s objective was to do well enough to be able to make the case that people should reserve judgment about him until the March 15 Ohio primary. It is hard to see how anyone can take that case seriously after these anemic results – especially since his continued presence in the race proved to be a spoiler that probably gave Trump victories in 3 states that he arguably would have lost if Kasich had withdrawn before Super Tuesday.
Ben Carson: Slight winner. Obviously Carson isn’t going to win the nomination, and he knows that. Winning is not his objective. His objective is to stay in the race so that he continues to have a national platform to be heard. He has also made it clear that he doesn’t want Trump to win the nomination, and given that much of Carson’s support probably would go to Trump if Carson dropped out of the race, his continued presence is serving Carson’s anti-Trump objective by denying Trump these votes. Carson didn’t win any states, and he only broke double-digits (barely) in 2 states, but his overall performance was about the same as Kasich’s, which gives him at least as valid an argument as Kasich to stay in the race and keep doing what he’s been doing.
Democrats: Obviously Hillary Clinton was the big winner, having won 7 of the 11 states up for grabs, and 6 of them by large margins. Sanders was the big loser, having won only 4 states, and only two of them by large margins (one of them being his home state of Vermont). At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Hillary has the Democrat nomination locked up, especially in view of her command of the superdelegates, unless she’s forced out of the race due to being indicted – in which case the nomination most likely would go to Joe Biden at a brokered convention.
Where do we go from here? As I said above, I have supported Rubio since the 2nd debate back in September. I believed, and still believe, that he is our best candidate for the general election and that he would make the best president of all of the candidates who were ever in the race this cycle. But things have dramatically changed, and right now the most important objective within the Republican Party is to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the nominee. A Trump nomination would bring an effective end to the Reagan conservative movement within the GOP and would result in the election of Hillary Clinton (or Joe Biden) as president. In fact, nominating Trump is the only way that Hillary Clinton (or Joe Biden) can get elected this year. Every other GOP candidate would defeat Hillary going away.
There are 2 ways that Trump might be stopped. One is to narrow it down to a 2-man race (or 3-man with Carson continuing to keep his supporters from going to Trump). Trump has never been able to break the majority threshold, so there is good cause to believe he would lose in a 2-man race. The other way that Trump might be stopped is to keep the vote split in a way that even if Trump continues to win most contests, he still would not get the necessary 1,237 delegates needed to lock up the nomination, which would result in a brokered convention. The conventional wisdom (which, admittedly, has been proven false more often than true this cycle) is that Trump would lose at a brokered convention.
Last night’s results show that there is currently more support among Republican voters for Ted Cruz than Marco Rubio. Add to that the fact that if Cruz dropped out, his supporters likely would split between Rubio and Trump, whereas if Rubio got out, the bulk of his supporters probably would begrudgingly go to Cruz given that Kasich is no longer viable (if he ever was). So, as much as I dislike Cruz for his repeated dishonesty and sleazy campaign tactics, I am forced to conclude that things seem to be moving in a direction that could make him our best shot at stopping Trump.
Leaving the Rubio camp is not something I would do easily or lightly, and I’m going to stick with Rubio for now just to see where things head over the next few days. I still think he’s our best general election candidate and would make the best president, and I’m praying that he can somehow rebound. But the greatest imperative is to defeat Trump, and for that reason, after last night’s results, I will grudgingly switch my support to Cruz if I become convinced that he is our best path to accomplishing that vital objective. After last night, that could very well prove to be the case.
