Posted on 03/07/2016 3:11:55 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I've never been a fan of early voting. Those who vote early do not have the opportunity to include in their deliberations late breaking events or campaign developments that might cause them to re-examine their decision.
I've always believed we're better off having everybody vote on the same day. That way everybody has access to the same information before they pull the lever. (Absentee ballots, of course, should be made available to those who cannot show up on election day due to travel or other unavoidable complications.)
An illustration of this comes from the Louisiana primary on Saturday. Donald Trump barely defeated Ted Cruz in the Bayou State 41%-38%. But it turns out Trump may owe his margin of victory to early voters.
This is because Cruz stormed back on election day, as the Washington Post points out in a piece by Philip Bump entitled Ted Cruz's huge surge in Election Day voting in Louisiana.
Bump compares voting data from early voters with data from day-of voters, and concludes "[T]his looks like the state of Louisiana bailed on Marco Rubio in favor of Ted Cruz."
Nate Silver has additional details. Here were Louisiana's election day vote totals:
Cruz 40.9%
Trump 40.5%
Rubio 9.4%
Kasich 6.8%
But here were the early vote totals:
Trump 46.7%
Cruz 22.9%
Rubio 20.1%
Kasich 3.7%
In other words, Cruz closed a 20 point gap in a matter of days, and actually won the vote on election day. Wrote The Hayride, "Ted Cruz erased a 20-point gap in Louisiana in less than a week and actually won the Election Day vote. That's absolutely incredible."
And Cruz picked up a large amount of his support from Marco Rubio, who tanked on Saturday, and produced a vote total less than half his absentee totals.
What happened? The most plausible explanation is that the debate happened. The last debate happened on the Thursday night before the Saturday election, and by most accounts both Trump and Rubio had bad nights. Trump was defensive all night long, changed his mind on immigration in the middle of the debate, and doubled down on ordering war crimes (only to reverse field the next day).
Rubio likewise had a substandard outing while Cruz refused to mud wrestle with either Trump or Rubio and kept the focus on substantive policy differences between him and his opponents.
Rubio had a perfectly terrible day on Saturday. He could not get out of the teens anywhere, and didn't even crack the 10% threshold in Maine to qualify for even a single delegate.
Cruz won stunning and decisive victories in Kansas (48-23) and Maine (46-33) and lost narrowly in Louisiana and Kentucky (36-32). According to NBC, he has closed the delegate gap with Trump to well under a hundred (392-305).
Bottom line: the bottom seems to have fallen out of the Rubio campaign, Trump's sheen is starting to tarnish, and Cruz seems to be peaking at just the right time. This campaign is far from over.
@sahilkapur Bernie wants to jump on the Trump bandwagon. pic.twitter.com/wPXwqqZsWl— Sting Mccoy(@StingMccoy) March 5, 2016
Yeah, Cruz already said that it was because he gave his word to Support the Republican nominee.
You call him a liar, and when he refuses to go back on his word now that’s bad to?
Hypocrite much?
Why do I care why that liberaal commie nutbag support another one?
The one arm salute has replaced the corn dog as the faux pas de jure.
I have unapologetically called Trump the Hitler of America, more for the politician Hitler was than the madman he became. I have also compared Trump to Julius Ceaser who took the Roman republic and turned into the Roman empire.
Donald Trump, Jr. Speaks 2-22-16 Elko NV.
https://youtu.be/1IqfRbjcpDY
It’s a Q and A. Don Jr is more articulate than most candidates in the race! Talks fast, not in a patronizing way and not like he’s lecturing. Lots about government waste, small government, “the left”, the constitution, the second amendment.
“I’m probably the only billionaire’s son more comfortable in a D-10 Cat than a golf cart.”
He personally reloads 100 different calibers.
Don Jr is part of the full court press from Trump.
Very impressive.
Nobody wins every state and nobody certainly wins every state by 20 points. Romney had a tougher road in 2012 up to this point and no one was giving him 1/100 the grief Trump gets.
Bernie has won more states than Cruz no one talks about him surging past Hillary.
I dont know to many working class guys with $350,000 for a bulldozer. Not to mention all the other equipment that goes with it.
And if they did they were working their tail off to pay for it and have little time for reloading. The guy has had a pampered life.
Donald Kardashian.
If CRuz were surging he would not have dropped a historic stink bomb in Texas, whereby he set an all time primary loss for a 'favorite son' candidate.
So, what is going to be the excuse for a Florida fiasco? A Republican has to carry Florida. Cruz couldn't get a bellhop to carry his bags in a Florida hotel.
And why isn’t Trump jr the candidate?
Jr. maybe all that and a box of cracker jacks.
My problems are with his father not Jr.
yes true about Romney, but Romney wasn’t leading by such YUUGE numbers, and touting them every other sentence he spoke.
Cruz is a globalist hack who doesn’t understand real Reagan economics about keeping and getting our jobs back: you must have real free trade even if means tariffs - Reagan understood that. CRuz is a TPA, giving us TPP, fanatic. His donor handlers want us sold down the drain and Cruz is more than happy to do that.
Donald Jr should influence you to reconsider his father.
Watch what Bill France says when endorsing Trump;
NASCAR CEO Brian France, some drivers endorse Donald Trump for president
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCCWiLLTko
Love that craptastic light from above stuff. What a hoot. Cruz, the satanic Sadducee from hell.
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