When doing your Trump primary math, look beyond N.H.
Michael A. Cohen
When doing your Trump primary math, look beyond N.H.
By Michael A. Cohen December 18, 2015
Globe political reporter James Pindell made a smart, under-appreciated point in his Ground Game newsletter Thursday (subscribe to it here: bostonglobe.com/groundgame): When it comes to the establishment lane, most candidates are looking to New Hampshire for clues. Sure, if someone like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Ohio’s Governor John Kasich, or Rubio wins the Granite State, then Republicans will likely have an establishment option in March.
But here’s the current trajectory of the race: US Senator Ted Cruz has the momentum to win Iowa, and Donald Trump is on a similar path to win New Hampshire. After winning Iowa, Cruz could easily get the 17 or 18 percent he needs to get second place in New Hampshire. That leaves the establishment candidate getting, at best, third place.
Then it is off to South Carolina and Nevada, where Trump holds double-digit leads, and then a week later to Super Tuesday. Those contests mostly take place in the Deep South, where an establishment candidate will probably not do well.
This is one of the more important subtexts to the GOP nomination fight — for those Republicans who are desperate to unseat Trump as the front-runner, the calendar is not their friend.
Increasingly, Iowa looks like a two-man race between Trump and Cruz, with Carson and Rubio fighting it out for third place.
Finishing third could be crucial to Rubio’s chances. While he certainly has the ideological make-up to finish second in New Hampshire to Trump (which is where he currently polls) he will have to deal with at least two candidates (Kasich and Christie) who have staked their entire candidacy on a strong performance in Iowa. Quite simply, Rubio needs momentum coming out of Iowa to do well in New Hampshire. It’s undoubtedly a good part of the reason why he’s been running ads, with Iowa’s famously socially conservative voters in mind, pledging to undo marriage equality. If he finishes fourth in Iowa behind Carson or third in New Hampshire behind Cruz or Christie, his campaign may find itself on life support.
Then comes South Carolina, a state where Trump is leading, but one can imagine Cruz making a strong showing. Rubio, Christie, and Kasich less so.
Next is Nevada, another state where Trump is leading and where he got 3,000 supporters to come out and see him speak on Monday night. In contrast, Rubio, who is seen to have an opportunity in Nevada because he lived there as a child, drew only a few hundred at a pre-debate rally. Still, if there’s any place where Rubio could potentially surprise, it might be here.
Then we have Super Tuesday on March 1, with Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Oklahoma all voting. These are places that favor a more conservative candidate. The advantage here goes to Trump and Cruz, the latter of whom is not unsurprisingly spending the next few weeks barnstorming the region.
So as Pindell suggested, where does the more moderate, establishment candidate put down his or her flag?
Now, it’s worth noting that there are other states voting on March 1 — Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Colorado, and Virginia. These are all places where a runner-up in New Hampshire, be it Rubio or Christie, could do well. But a Republican winning Massachusetts is not exactly the best endorsement for being the GOP nominee.
The real opportunity for a more establishment candidate will come a week later in Michigan, and then two weeks later in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio.
But this is no slam dunk either. If Jeb Bush remains in the race, he’ll certainly want to pull out all the stops to win in his home state of Florida. That’s bad for Rubio; although so too is the fact that even though he is the state’s junior senator, he currently trails Trump there by 20 points.
Then there’s the other wild card to this race. As the race moves to bluer states that have, at least theoretically, more moderate voters, it’s worth keeping in mind which candidate does best with moderate voters: Trump.
Indeed, some of his strongest support comes from two — on the surface — very mismatched groups, moderates and Tea Partiers.
In Iowa, according to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, Cruz leads Trump among very conservative voters by a 37-to-25 margin. Among moderates, Trump is capturing 42 percent of their vote, compared to 14 percent for Rubio and Bush. In South Carolina, a November poll has him winning 40 percent of moderates and 42 percent of Tea Partiers.
In the most recent ABC News/Washington Post national poll, Trump leads among very conservative voters by a 40-28 margin over Cruz, but his lead among moderates is larger: 34 percent versus 13 percent for Carson and 12 percent for Rubio.
A Quinnipiac poll has Trump doing best among moderates and Tea Partiers, although moderates are also the one group in the poll that is also most unlikely to vote for him.
It’s not hard to understand why an antiestablishment candidate like Trump would do well with Tea Partiers, who care more about immigration than probably any other issue. It’s also true that Trump does best among less religious voters, who are more likely to consider themselves moderates. And, in general, simply because some voters consider themselves moderate doesn’t necessarily mean they have moderate views. On some issues they might, like abortion, gun control or gay marriage where Trump’s profile is relatively low; on something like immigration they might be more conservative and thus more inclined to support Trump, who has made antiimmigration the centerpiece of his campaign.
In short, the establishment’s hope that Trump can be stopped when the primary elections move to less politically conservative states may not actually be true. Beyond that, if a more moderate candidate doesn’t emerge out of the early primary and caucus races, the establishment may find that it has no choice but to hold its nose and put all its chips behind Ted Cruz as the last best hope to stop Trump.
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