Semi-super Saturday is over. It was a horrible night for Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz won Kansas and Maine by huge and unexpected margins. Donald Trump won Louisiana and Kentucky by a bit under expected margins.
Performance Expectations
In How the States Voted on Semi-Super Saturday, Nate Silver commented on the performance of the candidates vs. expectations.
Silver declared Ted Cruz the winner. Compared to expectation, he gave Trump a 2 out of 10, Cruz a 9, Rubio a 1, and John Kasich a 4.
The problem with such analysis is that it is meaningless. It matters not how well one did vs. expectations. What matters is how well candidates did vs. what they needed to do.
Needs vs. Expectations
Trump had a poor showing, but let’s be serious. Semi-super Saturday results were hardly a disaster for Trump.
Trump lost two caucuses. So what?
I strongly suspect the caucuses were semi-rigged with pressure applied on voters to rally behind the leading non-trump candidate. And that they did.
Only if this turns into a meaningful switch in voter attitudes will the caucus results matter. Had Trump lost a third state, the results would been worse for him and better for Cruz.
Rubio’s campaign is looking like burnt toast.
Silver recently had Trump at 50%, Rubio at 40%, and Cruz at 10%. I thought 40% was ridiculously high, and it was. It will now take a miracle for Rubio, barring a brokered convention or a rules change.
Let’s assign some semi-super Saturday numbers based on what the candidates needed to do.
Needs Basis
- Cruz: 7
- Trump: 4
- Rubio: 1
- Kasich: 1
Cruz did what he had to. But will it be enough? I strongly doubt that. And if that estimate is correct, then one could logically argue Trump scored a six.
Instead, I give the benefit of the doubt to Cruz for turning this into a two-person race.
Trump’s Bluff
The Hill reports Trump Calls on Rubio to Drop Out of the Race.
I saw Trump’s speech following his wins on Saturday. I doubt he is serious.
The Florida winner-take-all Florida primary is coming up on March 15. If Rubio drops out, Cruz would likely be the beneficiary. I think Trump wants Rubio in, at least until the Florida primary.
When the voting switches away from the Evangelical states, that’s when it may be to Trump’s advantage to tun this into a two-way race.
For now, Trump has a strong lead in Florida. If that lead holds, Cruz’s blistering beat-the-expectations “9” will easily be seen as meaningless, and Silver, once again will have been late to the analysis party.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Trump won the most number of votes on Saturday by a significant amount.
Trump lost all the caucus states, where party machinery decides who wins. Trump has won almost all of the states where regular people voting decide the outcome… as the polls predicted he would.
The caucus states are showing us what would happen in a brokered convention. Trump needs to win outright or he will be managed out.
Not so. Kentucky was a caucus, and it was pretty obvious that the state party wanted Cruz to win.
Nate Silver is just another corporate media whore. ESPN is owned by Disney.
There is to be no deviation from the status quo narrative, and his “analysis” must reflect that.
Period. Full Stop.
Nate needs to stick to the raw stats/numbers and forget “analysis”. He’s been wrong about Trump & Sanders from the beginning, and like so many others he’s been doubling-down on his flawed initial “analysis”… following the high-bluff recipe for ‘zero credibility’ muffins.
The Brownshirts emerge.
Video footage that has been circulated on social media shows people in Traditionalist Worker Party t-shirts pushing people and taking their protest signs.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email that the campaign does not comment on security matters.
The Traditionalist Worker Party did not respond to requests for comment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3479115/Marine-discharged-getting-caught-camera-harassing-black-woman-Trump-rally.html
ETHNIC CONSCIOUSNESS
European-Americans are the descendants of indigenous people of Europe. They are often identified on government forms as Caucasian or ‘white’. We believe that European-American identity is under constant attack by members of American institutions such as the state, education, culture and even churches. We reject racial supremacism, and believe all the world’s peoples should embrace and celebrate their sacred heritage and identities.
ETHNOPLURALISM
According to metapedia.org, ethnopluralists assert the principle of “right to difference”, even defending the identities of immigrants, and argue for regional ethnic or racial separatism (the plurality of ethno-identities). It is therefore multiculturalism in the sense of multiple cultures or ethnicities existing in a country, but seperated in their own enclaves, to safeguard those differences.
http://www.tradworker.org
I think Rubio is finished, but will stay in until he loses Florida on the 15th. I do think, after the 8th, it will be basically a 2-way race between Trump and Cruz. Cruz must break through and win Florida on the 15th, at the very least, and might even need to win NC and/or MO.
It would help Cruz’s cause to win on this Tuesday in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Idaho. I think Trump walks away with Michigan. If Trump wins one or two of the other three, then it just looks bad going into the 15th for Cruz. The problem for Cruz is that most of the remaining slate favors Trump- states like Florida, Illionois, and Michigan, not even to mention NJ, NY, CA, etc. Cruz or Rubio really needed the breakthrough to happen a week ago. Time and schedule is in Trump’s column now.
Correct on all counts
Mish
Excellent analysis, Yancey.
What if Florida goes to Rubio by a micro-thin margin? Must he still walk the plank?
It is sort of fun to watch, even if none of this means anything.
I see no indication Rubio is even going come close in Florida at the moment, but will watch the polls. Had he had a good March 1 and March 5 showing, he would have momentum, but he face-planted instead. Let’s suppose he ekes out a win in Florida, but does nothing anywhere else on the 8th or 15th- then, yes, he will likely still bow out, but winning will keep delegates from Trump, and that raises the chances of a brokered convention. It is fun to watch.
Mish, Cruz won two CAUCUS States. Trump won the PRIMARY ELECTION in Louisiana. Michigan and Florida are PRIMARY ELECTIONS where the un-washed masses get to vote, so Trump should do well in Florida and Michigan.
Trump has tapped Jeff Sessions with 20 years experience on the Armed Forces Committee to put together a foreign policy team.
It was mentioned last night that Sessions does not favor foreign interventions and is not a member of the Neocon wing of the Republican Party.
Trump is moving in the right direction. Hopefully he will up to speed in a few weeks.
Based his track record on the GOP primaries so far, why would anyone pay attention to what Silver thinks? I’d rather get POTUS race predictions from my barber.
Trump is ahead in Florida by 20 percentage points. He’s ahead in Michigan by 15. Is Silver addressing that or ignoring it?
Looks like Silver’s favorite, Rubio, is all but washed out.
This GOP race is still Trumps to lose. I think he gets the nomination unless the RNC steals it from him – which will destroy the Republican Party base.
And Trump made it clear yesterday. If the GOP endorses a 3rd candidate to run against Trump in the general they’d hand the election to Clinton. That would destroy whatever credibility or integrity that the Party once had.
I guess political prognosticators are sort of like economists. No matter how many times they’re wrong they’ll always have a job.
Trump calling on Rubio to drop out is designed to get him mad enough to stay in and help split the anti-Trump boat. Deviously clever
I agree
Mish
The media love to cover Trump’s vulgarities, etc. but they’ve largely missed his MANY ‘clever’ moves & tactics. The guy has been pushing most/all the right buttons since Day One when he burst into the race waving the borders/immigration banner.
Trump’s criticism of GWBush/WMDs/IraqWar a couple weeks ago @ SC debate was GENIUS.
Win or lose, Trump has already done a great service by disrupting politics-as-usual. I am 100% convinced that w/o Trump, this would have been another Bush/Clinton “election” and issues like the TPP, immigration/border security & neocon FP would have been ignored/buried entirely.
Bernie and Trump are both “outsiders” to their respective parties, yet both are able to attract independents and members of the opposite party. The first party (DNC or GOP) that recognizes this political capital and nominates an outsider based on popular vote instead of delegates stands a better chance of winning the national election for president.
Just in case?
Romney and Ryan filed to run again in late January:
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00431171/1047622/
(via a source some might consider unreliable – Superstation95)
Too little, too late.
Americans love winners. Romney has 2012 ‘loser’-stink all over him. MR is kidding himself.
No doubt TPTB will attempt to steal the nomination from DT, and they may succeed. The RNC writes & re-writes the rules at every convention. Of course, the backlash would be fatal for the party, but the RNC has been passively suicidal for decades now so anything is possible, imo.
I believe Trump would win a 3-way race in any case. Look at the raw numbers from the recent primaries… the outsider is going to win in Nov. – a blind man can see it.
The RNC should be trying to assist/advise Trump, not trash him. The RNC has zero leverage & diminishing influence. By making an enemy of Trump now, the GOP is setting itself up for irrelevance/dissolution after Nov. All the Boomers & establishment-types scoff at such ‘extreme’ consequences, but they’ve been wrong all along and they’ll be wrong to the end. Such is the fate of cronies who don’t recognize the ground (paradigm) shifting under their feet.
Pingback: Semi-Super Saturday: Needs vs. Expectations; Trump’s Bluff | MishTalk | John Barleycorn