Click on the image to see updated results.
About half an hour after polls closed, CBS or someone boldly predicted that Donald Trump had won the South Carolina GOP primary.
To which I responded, Um, yeah… we knew that was going to happen. The real questions are:
- How did the real candidates, the serious candidates, do?
- Did Rubio beat the other extremist, Cruz?
- Where did Bush and Kasich fall?
- How far behind Rubio was Bush?
- Will Bush drop out after today?
- If he does, how much longer can Kasich hang in there?
- When do we get to where only one of the normal trio — Rubio, Bush and Kasich — is left?
Because at that point, with about half the GOP electorate in play versus Trump’s 30-something percent and Cruz’s 20-something, can we start to see a normal election start to shape up.
Anyway, those are the things I’m thinking about as the results come in.
Your thoughts?
Interesting:
It’s about like most of us thought it would be. Trump wins and stays near his ceiling – 32 to 35 %. Rubio and Cruz finish close to each other. The rest divide the non anti-government and non-libertarian vote. I’m guessing Kasich (barely beats Carson) drops out this week or next. Bush will get most of his supporters. Kasich might even endorse Bush if he shows life soon. Bush has big money behind him and a big (and nasty) superpac. I guess Carson might try to hang on a week or two, but he has had some of his delusions pushed back. I think nobody not now for Trump (his 30%) moves to him, and he should fade within a few weeks. Carson’s groupies will probably be divided between Cruz and Rubio – maybe a few to Bush if he waves the Bible significantly.
No, I think Bush drops out before Kasich.
This is Bush country. It always goes for Bushes. If he can’t win here, carrying on is pointless.
And there he is, running neck-and-neck with Kasich for a distant fourth place. If it stays like that, or if Kasich edges him out, there’s just no hope for Bush carrying on.
Smart move for him is to “suspend” his campaign, and hope for a brokered convention. Although why a brokered convention should turn to him after his performance, I don’t know…
Oops. You are correct. I thought the money would keep Bush in until he saw how the other lower candidates winnowed down.
Well, that COULD happen. He might just say, “I’ve got the money, I’ll stay in no matter what.”
But I’m thinking not…
Oh, wait, I just saw that he HAS suspended his campaign…
So I guessed right.
Rubio’s winning easily in Richland County. Democratic County, of course…
The same county that will overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, that’s what I just said…
How is Trump not a “serious candidate”? He’s using his own money and he’s blowing the others out of the water across the board. I’m undecided, but I’m not counting out voting for Trump. Both Cruz and Rubio have issues that need to be addressed. Everyone knows Trump, he’s not hiding anything. He may not be a “serious candidate” or in other words “career politician” that you want to see… which is why I suspect deep down we’ll see a Hillary Clinton sign in your front yard before long.
Never have, never will.
Serious candidates are those with a chance of becoming president.
Coming in second doesn’t give you the presidency. Unless Trump decides to drop out the numbers speak differently than you do.
How many Democrats voted in the Republican primary today… just to cast a vote against Trump? Hillary is going to walk through SC, so voting in the Democratic primary is kind of a waste of time for Democrats.
Unlike John McCain?
Or functioning as President. Unless ill-advised ignorance goes viral, Trump and Carson are at their ceilings. (35 and 8) I suspect Rubio will win it, because Cruz is still hated among non-tea party Republicans. Kasich would indeed be a good running mate for him. I look for Trump to bounce down a little, Cruz to keep daggering and back-stabbing while trying to out-religion Rubio. Cruz’s “victory” speech last night made me gag. He was so “gracious to” Bush (trolling for supporters maybe?) and condemning those other candidates for negative attacks and dirty tricks. What a phony. Probably the last one out unless Trump gets enough delegates to try to be a power-broker. (He’s good at deals, you know.)
Great news!!! No more Bush!
Rubio is now the “establishment” candidate. He would be the most formidable Republican in the general. Adding the Bush, Kasich and Rubio votes together gets you to around 38%. That should make Rubio hard for Trump or Cruz to beat.
bud are you saying that everyone who votes for Bush and Kasich will vote for Rubio? If so, even if every single voter votes that way, it still only puts him 5% ahead of Trump.
5% is a good margin. Any candidate would take it.
True, but since we’re talking about “what if”, you do realize that this 5% would only be achieved if every Bush and Kasich voter supported Rubio. I suspect that 40-50% would likely split between Cruz and Trump so the point would likely be moot.
To revisit our questions of earlier this evening:
Did Rubio beat the other extremist, Cruz? Maybe. They’re neck-and-neck. Rubio has a slight edge with 97 percent reporting.
Where did Bush and Kasich fall? Virtually tied for a distant fourth place.
How far behind Rubio was Bush? Quite a bit less than half the number of votes.
Will Bush drop out after today? Yep.
If he does, how much longer can Kasich hang in there? Remains to be seen.
When do we get to where only one of the normal trio — Rubio, Bush and Kasich — is left? It may not be long.
Kasich may hang on until Ohio votes. Then Rubio assumes the somewhat normal candidate mantle. After just 3 states it’s a 3 man race.
Pretty much, unless Kasich pulls out a surprise of some sort. What that might be, I have no idea…
Can we now out put to rest the myth that money buys elections? Bush out spent everyone and failed.
We did see that Lindsay Graham’s endorsement added all of his 0% to Bush’s total. Nikki Haley brought a lot more voters to Rubio than Graham delivered. Graham is irrelevant at this point.
Money doesn’t necessarily buy elections per se. Money buys policy, it buys government.
No, it doesn’t, Bernie. The world is more complicated than that.
Of the three — elections, policy, government — the one that money would be most likely to be able to buy is elections. And we saw how that worked out with Jeb!
Well of course it’s “more complicated than that”–that’s fundamentally why I am a progressive and not a free-market libertarian, because I believe in making and keeping it “more complicated than that.” But to say that in a capitalist society money naturally buys—ok, how about “seeks to buy”—policy, is a statement of the obvious on a par with “the sun provides heat to the earth.”
All you have to do is pick up a newspaper any given day and see an item, on a local, state, or national level, in which powerful interests help secure policies that benefit them at the expense (financial, health, other) of other elements in society that have fewer resources at their disposal. I see it every single day of my life. I saw it a few days ago in action at my neighborhood meeting. I read about it in articles like this one. I see it manifested by the actions of our Legislature. It is the answer to almost every question in American life that begins “Why do we have this ongoing Problem X that we seem unable to solve?” (Why are our pharmaceutical costs the highest in the world? Why do we remain so dependent on fossil fuels? Why are we unable to think of long-term goals—educating our children, slowing global warming, fixing our infrastructure—because we’re so focused on short-term ones?)
Yes, some residual sense of fairness and belief in American ideals means that democratically-elected government (at national, state, local levels) periodically acts as a brake on this natural tendency for power to accrue to the, well, powerful. But I would propose that this natural brake has been steadily eroding since about 1980. I think more Americans than ever have some awareness of this, even if they may not phrase it exactly the same way or have the same idea of what the solution would be (think Sanders vs. Trump). But surely you can agree something is going on in the country. What is that thing?
So I believe you have it exactly backwards: elections are the LEAST predictably influenced element where money is concerned, and in that sense I’d agree with Doug. On the other hand let’s not get carried away here with Jeb’s failure and thus pat ourselves on the back that a great person with good ideas can achieve electoral success with no money: all Jeb’s failure proves is that gazillions of dollars don’t necessarily beat bazillions of dollars, that once you get past a certain level of money, more money doesn’t necessarily triumph. Look, Trump and Cruz ain’t exactly running their campaigns on a shoestring.
“all Jeb’s failure proves is that gazillions of dollars don’t necessarily beat bazillions of dollars, that once you get past a certain level of money, more money doesn’t necessarily triumph.”
Yeah. I would tend to mostly agree. I think Jeb’s failure shows that it doesn’t matter how much money you have if you don’t connect with voters. Jeb is a candidate who would have done very well in 2000. Unfortunately for him, the world has changed a lot since then. That’s not his fault though – just bad timing.
This isn’t the world CHANGING — this is the world falling apart.
This is what DIDN’T happen in the ’30s in this country, despite the Depression — extreme political movements and blowhard demagogues winning broad support.
The nation has gone quite mad…
I elaborate on the above here.
I’m in a meeting and can’t respond at length to Phillip, but I see more problems caused by stupidity than money.
“Stupidity” being a catch-all for stubbornness, ideology, incorrect assumptions, emotion and, yes, stupidity…
Cruz and Rubio’s superpacs spent on a par with Bush. Bush’s campaign and allies blew their money too early, he was often close to right with his points, but unconvincing. Trump had multi-millions in free coverage by a slack, lazy electronic press. Why spend when the networks give it free?
When I looked at the totals by county, the rural/urban difference really jumped out at me. Richland and Charleston went for Rubio, and Greenville County almost did, even though I’d think going by the “evangelicals like trump and cruz” idea, it should have gone harder for them. The more rural (and poor) the county, the higher the percentages of trump/cruz voters.
Trump cleaned up in Horry County.
Lot’s of Evangelical pandering candidates this year – Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Carson (who faired pretty well in some places) – so the religious right kind of made itself irrelevant as a block this year. They marginalized themselves.
Of course, same is true of the 15% combined who voted for Bush/Kasich.
I am Baptist and virtually every church friend I know voted for Rubio- a few voted for Cruz.
I would say the chance of a third party candidate, whether it is Trump or Bloomberg or Bernie or any combination, impacting the election in November is now in “would not be a surprise” zone.
I find it fascinating that many Democrats think this is over. There is a world outside their bubble that they can’t even envision.
I find it interesting that someone from SC claims anybody is in a bubble. There’s a whole big country out there, and SC values” aren’t close to normative for the country.
If you’re talking about me, I have spent more than half of the past twenty years I’ve lived in SC working in other states around the country. The only state I haven’t been to is North Dakota. No bubble for me.
These are the states where I have spent three months or more working four days a week over the past 15 years.
SC, NC, GA, AL, FL, CA, IL, UT, VA, DC, OH, TX, MA, NH, PA, CO
I think I have a perspective on what’s going on around the country that few people have. North, South, East, and West.