Three primaries, one caucus
[BUMPED UP, with later updates at bottom]
Caucus in Hawaii, primaries in Idaho, Mississippi, and Michigan. The last two are open, which I assume favors Trump. I expect him to do well, although Kasich will give him a run for his money in Michigan—at least, according to polls.
UPDATE 9:00 PM
Both Michigan and Mississippi have been called for Trump, as expected. The Michigan results are looking to be similar to Trump’s in a lot of other states, at about 37-38% with 15% precincts reporting so far. Kasich has been approximately 10 points behind. Mississippi only has 2% reporting so far, but Trump is getting 51.8 of the vote to Cruz’s 34.3%. If that holds up, it would be by far Trump’s best showing in any state. Both states are open primaries—although Michigan is called “closed,” voters can choose a new party as they arrive to vote, so it actually functions as a completely open primary.
UPDATE 9:22 PM
Cruz continues to dominate Rubio, whose support in these two states is very low, less than 10% in Michigan and less than 5% in Mississippi, at least at the moment.
All of today’s states have proportional delegate awards, so the actual delegate count may not really change all that much. It’s those winner-take-all states that have the most influence.
Ironically the divided field that helped make Trump might also be keeping him down- if Kasich and Rubio had dropped last week, Trump wins Ohio and Florida outright, putting the race out of reach for Cruz.
hawaii will be interesting, yes… but here is some stuff that is not quite matching the image producers put forth…
Jeb Bush’s brother joins Cruz finance team
Neil Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush and brother of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is joining Cruz’s national finance team, the campaign said Tuesday
Cause they love anti establishment types…
and for oldflyer if he reads this…
it doesnt matter that Cruz wife was goldman sachs, as Goldman sachs is one of cruz largest campaign contributors.
and neil?
Neil Bush was a member of the board of directors of Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan during the 1980s’ larger savings and loan crisis. According to a piece in Salon, Silverado’s collapse cost taxpayers $1.3 billion
definitely not establishment
banks biggest donators
wife is a banker from infamous Goldman Sachs
Neil Bush, from silverado joins
still think that marrying a banker when your a politician means nothing oldflyer?
there is also Chad Sweet… globalist firm and investment banker consultancy… here is what new american says:
Sweet cofounded Chertoff Group with former Bush and Obama administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Hardly the pedigree of an outsider. In fact, his neocon bona fides could not be better.
Victoria Coates is also a team member… Coates has a track record of supporting a neoconservative foreign policy. she is all for wars to make democracy a place in the world, forcing all cruz newbies to read “Dictatorships And Double Standards” by Jeanne Kirkpatrick
how you follow the constitution AND use american military to topple foreign governments the old fashioned way, well, i will let oldflyer explain how someone so anti establishment has all the key establishment figures on his team
James Woolsey? also on the tearm “a national security specialist and former Director of the CIA under the Clinton administration He heads up many Neoconservative groups including being the Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Founding Member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.” his infogram bio
his opinion on snowden: “He should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead.”
while cruz wife is CFR, how about Elliot Abrams?
a well established estblishment man..
While the CFR is the most notorious of the associations of Abrams, it isn’t the only one. He is also a member (or former member) of the Center for Security Policy, Hudson Institute, National Endowment for Democracy, and many more
to quote newamerican:
The problem isn’t that his inner circle is composed of men and women of vast foreign policy experience; the problem is that their experience is in growing government, supporting surveillance, and using American troops as global peacekeepers. As constitutionalists know, each of these endeavors – pursued over and over by Cruz’s chosen advisors – is unconstitutional and not at all consistent with Ted Cruz’s public statements.
who is on trumps team that is so establishment?
just wondering..
This must be making the rounds on the alt-right kook sites, because this is the second mention of Neil Bush I’ve heard today, and I’ve never heard of him before in my life.
Who gives a shit what Neil Bush thinks?
Matt_SE:
Ah, but don’t you see? Any person who can be called a RINO (or whose relatives or wives could be called RINOs) who works on a conservative’s campaign means, of course, that the conservative (who has worked and functioned and consistently spoken as a conservative his entire life) is really a RINO!!
QED.
That way, just about everyone is disqualified for insufficient purity of association. And a person’s favored candidate—who, if it’s Donald Trump, actually IS a RINO, at best—can rise.
We Are All RINOs Now.
Until we’re close to the finish line, I’m not usually too interested in the horse-race aspect of politics, but I try to keep track of the numbers. I’m still convinced that it’s too early for polls to stabilize, but maybe I have to get used to the idea of a socialist president.
This “Real Clear Politics” page (http://tinyurl.com/lxxoe6l) summarizes polls for matchups we could see in the general election. Almost all the polls show that Trump would lose to either Hillary or Sanders. There’s been plenty of talk about that, so the results don’t surprise me.
Almost all the polls also show that either Cruz, Rubio, or Kasich would defeat Hillary. Again, lots of talk and no big surprise.
But here’s what surprised me: almost all the polls show that Sanders would win against any Republican, and sometimes the victory would be by a wide margin. I did a very quick and dirty search for analyses of this, but didn’t see anything convincing.
Maybe I just have one-sided reading habits, but I don’t remember much talk about the upcoming Sanders landslide. Anyone have a good theory? Off the top of my head, it looks as if the demographics that drove the Obama coalition are alive and well. If Sanders weren’t old and white and male, we’d probably be looking at the certainty of socialism.
Voted today in Boise, Idaho – my very first primary. I don’t like to declare my ‘affiliation’ but understand and agree with the reasons for it.
Voting was brisk. Show your ID, sign before and after voting. First time ever being tallied electronically. Every single GOP candidate was (still) on the ballot. Don’t know how that works or why. There was a blank write in space, of course.
I voted for Cruz, whom I believe in, and who also has (I think) the only chance of beating Trump to be the nominee. It will be interesting to see how my very conservative state tallies up.
Signed,
A newly minted Republican
Welcome to the loser party, Man of the West. 🙂
AManOfTheWest:
“Every single GOP candidate was (still) on the ballot.”
The reason I read is that the ballots have to be printed with enough lead time to get them to all the military and diplomatic personnel world wide and get them back in time to be counted. Ships at sea, submarines, those serving in combat areas are especially difficult.
The state election boards are in charge of this, not the feds. There is federal legislation that dictates the lead time, but the FEC can grant waivers.
In the 1990s, these state boards were often run by Democrats, and service personnel vote big time in favor of Republicans, so the boards had a vested interest in making sure that they delayed shipping as long as they could. The Democrat-run FEC was more than happy to grant waivers, and a large % of military ballots would not be counted in every election, because they weren’t back in time, enough to make a difference for the Democrats in lots of elections at every level from local to national, just another way for Dems to rig the system..
This came to a head big-time in the 2000 debacle. The Democrats fought like hell to make sure some 20,000 military votes were not counted in Florida, and IIRC, they never were.
This is all from memory so I may have some details or processes wrong.
neo-neocon Says: to Matt_SE:
Ah, but don’t you see? Any person who can be called a RINO (or whose relatives or wives could be called RINOs) who works on a conservative’s campaign means, of course, that the conservative (who has worked and functioned and consistently spoken as a conservative his entire life) is really a RINO!!
you grew up with Cruz and were with him his entire life? if not, then your just saying crap that is not true, right? you know what he has said all his life?
in the same breath you can deny all the people from trumps life that have come out and stated about him? so you get to pick and choose whose entire life you know about?
that is pretty screwed up…
have you even met the man?
If a RINO is really a Dem, then why would someone so pure conservative stack the deck with so many people who should ve antithetical to that, and take campaign money from the same source?
oh and neil? i guess you all forgot what he did and the 1.3 billion he costed us as people complaining about bailouts.
F.D.I.C. Sues Neil Bush And Others at Silverado
Federal regulators today sued Neil M. Bush, the President’s son, and other directors, officers and lawyers of a defunct Denver savings and loan association, saying their ”gross negligence” had led to a collapse that could cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.
NOW there is a great person to be on a conservatives team!!
A man at the core of the S&L who basically cheated the people, his father tried to use the presidency to help, and who eventually stuck the public with 1.3 billion bill, and even more came out years later when he devorced.
yeah… he is a great addition to a conservative team of people
funny, but you hate trump for offering 2 million for a home that eventyually sold at auction to another billionaire for 500,000… and you dont mind someone who stiffed the public, broke laws, created the S&L scandal, which ALSO included jeb…
why am i the only one who remembers silverado?
Neil approved $106 million in Silverado loans to another JNB investor, Bill Walters.
Neil also never formally disclosed his relationship with Walters and Walters also defaulted on his loans, all $106 million of them.
Neil Bush was charged with criminal wrongdoing in the case and ended up paying $50,000 to settle out of court. The chief of Silverado S&L was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for pleading guilty to $8.7 million in theft.
https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/sandl/
Cruz and neil are fine, they are establishment and that can do no wrong, as he is paid by cruz to be there, just as hillary is paying herself to campaign…
care to check out the others on that list of what kind of people they are? especially Elliot Abrams and woolsey
Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National Security Council as director of its office for democracy
Another great guy to have on your team!!! its not like lying to congress and getting jobs over and over is anti-establishment… eh?
Over three years, James Woosley and at least five other ICE employees scammed the agency by fabricating expenses for trips that were never taken and for hotel, rental car and restaurant expenses that did not exist, according to court records.
so far, there are three people on his team that have cheated the public, cheated the state, required a presidential pardon, and are such outsiders that they have jobs in politics still…
if you or i did ANY of those things we would be in prison
they are establishment, so they get jobs with high pay
i want to point out that the worst you got on trump is you dislike him for offering a good amount to a person holding out – who ended up getting a lot less from somene you dont hate… who you dont like his perosnality, demeanor etc.
but you DO like a man who has hired a bank bailout scandal man, a iran contra scandal man, and a man who was caught cheating.
one did nothing criminal, the other is hiring criminals who are so embedded in the establishment they never served time and continued to get top jobs..
oh. and a casual glance and i can give you more but you and others are so focused on the non issue bs that isnt really anything, that your not paying attention that your dream candidate has more than three establishment criminals on his core team
yah.. i have no real reasons for not liking cruz.. not cause i rememver this stuff and other things, but because you dont… you dont remember iran contra, you dont remember S&L scandal…
but i dont trust people who make such others their closest advisors… why do you?
may i ask who is on trumps team that has such a criminal past and pardons, and such?
Hillary has HIGH repugnance with Democrats.
Sanders would clearly out poll her in November — if he can survive her dirty tricks.
&&&&
Kasich needs an absurd number of victories to get into contention. He’s THAT far behind.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Democrats are abandoning their own primary to botch up the GOP.
With today’s Internet, this action is now easily co-ordinated across swathes of voters, folks that would never have thought of the scheme on their own.
It appears such cross-over rats denied Kasich a victory in Michigan.
Trump is pulling Democrat support — in states that are not even in contention in November.
He’s a loser.
In the meantime Rubio and Kasich are, de facto, supporting Trump — and consequentially — Hillary.
Kasich looks and acts like he’s high on himself.
holmes Says:
March 8th, 2016 at 3:33 pm
Ironically the divided field that helped make Trump might also be keeping him down- if Kasich and Rubio had dropped last week, Trump wins Ohio and Florida outright, putting the race out of reach for Cruz.
&&&&
Slow down Sherlock.
Trump is ALREADY winning Florida outright.
Trump is Already ahead in Ohio.
In EVERY two-man poll, Trump loses to Cruz.
&&&
So,
You were saying.
Early results have Rubio in 4h in Mississippi and Michigan. The weird thing is, if he dropped out now it’d be worse for Cruz. Ted can’t make up the ground he’d need in Florida at this point, and he’s be better off having an excuse rather than Trump declaring himself the winner of a duel.
Nick:
What do you think would happen to Rubio’s votes in Florida? Do you actually think they’d go to Trump? What’s more, there’s very wide variation in recent polls of Florida. If Rubio dropped out before Florida (which he won’t, in my opinion), Cruz certainly could win if he got the lion’s share of Rubio’s votes, depending on the poll.
This close to the election, Rubio would probably keep a lot of his votes. Even if Rubio only pulls in 10%, that’s a tough hill for Cruz to climb.
Cast my vote today in Michigan for Ted Cruz. It would be nice to see him edge Kasich. But Trump trumping was certainly not a surprise.
Several good articles are coming out now about the people who support him. They are indeed the core working class. I’m not the least bit disturbed by the possibility of Trump getting the nomination. I think he will beat Hillary “like a tied up billy goat” in the words of one Dem analyst.
Julian T,
Unless the billy goat is trussed up with no ability to move, it takes a stout piece of hickory beat a billy, and then you are likely to receive a few ugly bruises. 🙂
Who can forget Silverado? It was the poster child of the Savings and Loan Crisis, which eventually lead to the repeal of Glass-Steagall and 2008. ‘Nuff said.
Bottom line is, Rubio and Kasich need to leave. I think Rubio *might* do it after the next debate on the 10th but before losing in FL, but I think he definitely leaves after the 15th.
Kasich seems to be running a vanity project, and/or a resume padding scheme. When his ego and self-interest are on the line, I doubt he’ll leave even after the 15th.
Both men are currently splitting the anti-Trump vote. They are enabling his victory.
OT: but MOST gratifying! Queen Elizabeth gives Nick Clegg a bit of stick (reads him the Riot Act) over the EU — she wants Great Britain OUT of the EU.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/08/happy-and-glorious-queen-elizabeth-ii-backs-britain-leaving-the-european-union/
I have a number of liberal friends of whom not one will vote for Hillary. In fact they speak of her in terms usually reserved for Republicans. Not even a plurality of them feel the Bern either. Some of them are open to Rubio but just barely. They positively hate the idea of a Trump presidency. I think most will not vote in the Pres. election.
I have even more conservative friends, none of whom can even fathom the idea that anyone would vote for Trump. Most of them liked Carson (but expect would not have voted for him). All are presently supporting Cruz as am I.
None of us can understand where the support for Trump comes from but note that he does well in “open” primary states. I wonder how much the Democrat vote is underperforming in those states he has won.
One of Neo’s commenters, MJR, I believe, had linked to a friend’s published defense of Trump and asked readers to take an honest look.
I tried, and came away with this.
The authors says among other things:
I don’t know if the description is completely fair and accurate or not. But taken as a prescription which Cruz should heed, he certainly has a point.
Cruz must make the case for those concerned that their patrimony is being sold off by those whose self-interested maneuvering has left the American middle class under existential pressure.
The left doesn’t care of course, they want it destroyed as it represents a naturally oppositional political force. For them, the new management has already arrived, and it’s just a matter of making sure that those bitterly clinging to old habits and assumptions understand and bow to the new terms of their tenancy-at-will, in ever more stark and unmistakable terms.
The “GOPe”, apparently doesn’t care either. “Who needs buggy whips or farmers anymore, anyway? They served their former purposes by getting us ensconced in these cushy positions. tell then now to please go away and die with some dignity! And by the way, on their way out, to leave the keys to their houses here on the table.”
Cruz has to show he can address these matter too.
“matters” , of course.
Been way under the weather lately. Still, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or something … cough cough
Artfldgrs Says:
“…you grew up with Cruz and were with him his entire life? if not, then your just saying crap that is not true, right? you know what he has said all his life?”
You grew up with Trump and were with him his entire life? if not, then your just saying crap that is not true, right? you know what he has said all his life?
Both men’s histories are out there. I’ll bet you’ve read at least one of Trump’s books. Did you read Cruz’ book, too? What’s that, “no” you say? Color me unsurprised.
Cruz memorized the Constitution in high school. Has Trump ever even read it? Does he know anything at all about the principles the founders built into it, how the the Progressives have slowly made it irrelevant in the last 100 years? I’ll bet Cruz does.
You surely must know he’s argued nine cases in front of SCOTUS in defense of our rights, including the 2A. He clerked for Rehnquist, probably the most conservative Chief Justice of SCOTUS ever. For the Senate, he beat the GOPe candidate despite being massively outspent. I’ve seen nothing that hints at him being anything other than a Constitutional conservative his entire life.
Trump’s past is public, too, and from a conservative view, is highly unflattering. He’s been a liberal Democrat his entire life.