South Carolina and Nevada

Trump (32.4%) has another victory and all the Palmetto State delegates too.  Jeb! (7.9%) has finally admitted what has been obvious for months and suspended his campaign.  Where will his sliver of voters go now?  I doubt they will go to Trump, as Trump has been particularly abrasive toward Jeb.  It is pretty clear that it is a three way race with only Trump, Rubio (22.4%), and Cruz (22.3%) having enough support to reasonably stay in the race.  Kasich (7.6%) had over a hundred town hall meetings in New Hampshire to achieve a distant second; Santorum used the same strategy to win Iowa in 2012 but it gained him little traction thereafter.  Kasich and Carson (7.2%) will be the next two to suspend their campaigns, perhaps after Nevada but pretty certainly after Super Tuesday.  Trump will be best served if both Cruz and Rubio are still in the race after Super Tuesday so that the anti-Trump wing of the party can't coalesce around one of those two.  It is also possible that as the last 'establishment' candidate, Trump and Cruz will serve to split the anti-establishment vote and give Rubio his path to victory.  Interesting days ahead.

 

Meanwhile, Nevada chose Hillary (52.7%) over Bernie (47.2%), thus providing Hillary her first solid victory from the voters.  It could hardly be more appropriate that the land of gambling and prostitution chose Bill Clinton's wife rather than America's anti-capitalist scold.  Hillary is likely to win South Carolina as well.  Despite her apparent unpopularity, she has the Clinton network to manage her ground game.  Young voters prefer Bernie - much as they preferred Obama in 2008 - but turn out has been down among Democrats this year.  That's bad news for Bernie.  Low turnout tends to benefit the establishment.  Nevada participation was down by a third from 2008, showing the voters are less interested in the Clinton - Sanders race than they were in the Clinton - Obama race.

 

On the issue of turnout, the Republicans have had tremendous participation so far.  If the relative voter enthusiasm holds to the general election, this could be a Republican landslide.  As I said in an earlier post, the presidency almost always switches parties after a two term presidency.  Lacking a roaring economy only makes it more likely to flip.