Posted on 12/15/2015 1:28:08 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
If there was any doubt that Ted Cruz is the hot commodity of late in the Republican presidential race, it should be dispelled by the results of the latest national poll.
Ryan Lovelace of the Washington Examiner reports, âA new national survey shows that while Donald Trump maintains a huge lead among GOP primary voters, Sen. Ted Cruz is continuing to surge.
Marco RubioâAccording to the latest New York Times/CBS poll, Trump wins 35 percent of the vote, and has a 19-point lead over Cruz. But Cruz jumped into second place with 16 percent, which is roughly four times the level of support he had in October.â
Ben Carson maintains third place at 13 percent. Added together, the three top âoutsiderâ candidates still command nearly two-thirds of the vote. Some polls have shown them under 60 percent in recent months, but not many. The percentage of the âoutsiderâ vote has been by far the most consistent element of the 2016 Republican presidential race.
Thatâs bad news for the establishment line-up of Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christieâ¦and probably Marco Rubio (who gets only 9 percent in the poll to sit in fourth place).
Despite Trumpâs huge lead, nearly two-thirds of poll respondents -- which means Democrats are included -- expressed concern or fear about a Trump presidency (though the numbers are similar to those who are concerned or afraid of a Hillary presidency, too).
Weâre one concerned or scared country, thatâs for sure. With the abysmal track record of our elected leaders, weâre justified in that fear.
The establishment must be downright terrified of the overall polling numbers which show their candidates in the dumps. It basically means theyâve lost control of their own partyâs voters. The time has passed when the elites can offer up anyone they anoint and people just go along with it.
Thereâs nothing âinevitableâ in Republican politics today.
âNo Oneâ is odds-on favorite to take the Republican nomination according to pundit
Americans love a good game of chance, so some folks are already starting to set odds on who will end up with the Republican presidential nomination next summer. History is usually a guide in such endeavors, though this yearâs heavy emphasis on âoutsiderâ candidates would suggest thereâs more uncertainty in making predictions in mid-December â and even a week or two before the voting starts might be too early.
The Republican Partyâs refusal to get behind the traditional ânext in lineâ candidate also makes the picture a lot fuzzier this year. Nevertheless, Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics gave it his best shot in forecasting a winner.
He writes, âAnd while these things tend to shift radically at the end, sometimes in unpredictable ways, the race has taken enough shape that we can start to give meaningful analysis about the likely outcome.â
For each of the candidates, Trende sets the odds as follows:
âJim Gilmore, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum (0 percent) Rand Paul (1 percent) Mike Huckabee (1 percent) Carly Fiorina (2 percent) John Kasich (2 percent) Ben Carson (3 percent) Jeb Bush (5 percent) Chris Christie (10 percent) Ted Cruz (15 percent)/Marco Rubio (16 percent) = 31 percent Donald Trump (20 percent) No One (25 percent)â
The last entry is particularly interesting as I initially thought âNo Oneâ meant some other candidate (such as Mitt Romney) would end up with the nomination.
I was wrong. Trende explains, âMy most likely scenario (25 percent) is still that no one wins a sufficient number of delegates to claim the nomination. As Nate Silver lays it out, this comes in three different âflavorsâ:
(1) No one wins, but someone is close enough that the writing is on the wall; (2) no one wins, but things get sorted out at the convention; (3) no one wins, and it is fought out on the convention floor.
âI agree with Silver that these are presented in decreasing order of likelihood, and actually put the overall percentages lower than he did (and lower than I did last winter).â
Disagreeing with Trende, I say the only way âno oneâ wins is if there are three viable candidates still alive after all the votes have been cast. Thatâs probably not likely, especially since most states after March 1st are winner-take-all in awarding delegates. Momentum (or lack thereof) swells quickly in the early contests and with more of the distractor candidates falling out of the race, it will likely come down to just two battling it out.
It seems to me the entire race hinges on how well Donald Trump does in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. If Ted Cruz wins in Iowa, for example, Iâm guessing heâll also win in South Carolina and likely add a strong second in New Hampshire. He would carry that momentum into the SEC primary on March 1st and his delegate count will already be pretty impressive.
Conservatives will consolidate around Ted at that point and I donât see him being stopped regardless of whether Trump stays in or the establishment settles on Rubio.
However, if Trump wins in Iowa, heâll certainly follow it up in New Hampshire. Then it may come down to Trump versus Cruz and an establishment candidate, probably Rubio or Christie. Everyone keeps talking about Rubio being such a strong candidate but everything I see indicates he doesnât have the same on-the-ground organization Cruz has built and may not even match Trump in that category.
The establishment will certainly help him build one if he looks promising, but not if he doesnât do credibly well in Iowa and New Hampshire â and right now, Marco doesnât look like a serious contender to win in either state.
In closely observing the last several elections, Iâve been surprised at how quickly things move after Iowa and New Hampshire. If a candidate doesnât have momentum, the media stops talking about him and heâs pretty much finished. Even a weak establishment candidate like John McCain bolted out of New Hampshire and never looked back.
That may not happen this time, but if Trump ends up winning in Iowa, it could very well transpire.
The establishment will look stunned and everyone will start asking, âWhat now?â
Cruz wins key Iowa endorsement, slams Wall Street Journal
If it seems like Iâm talking a lot about Ted Cruz and Iowa these days, itâs because I am.
The reason is Cruz is getting stronger there every day and itâs more than just simple momentum. Itâs looking more like a wave.
Ben Kamisar of The Hill reports on Tedâs latest good news from the Hawkeye State. âInfluential Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats has endorsed Ted Cruz for president.
âCruz is already surging in Iowa and its first-in-the-nation presidential contest, and the key endorsement will add to perceptions that the Texas senator is in a strong position to win the state's presidential caucuses.â
Vander Plattsâ nod follows congressman Steve Kingâs last month. The two Iowa leaders command tremendous respect with the stateâs conservatives and certainly will carry some weight. It should be noted Vander Platts endorsed the previous two Iowa Republican winners, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.
In choosing Cruz, Vander Platts also made it clear why he didnât want Rubio â because of the Florida senatorâs leadership in the Gang of Eight.
Cruz has been courting Kingâs and Vander Plattsâ favor for months and itâs all coming together for him now in Iowa. It could be said Tedâs favorability is going up pretty much everywhere.
Except for maybe the editorial pages of the GOP establishmentâs favorite mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal, that is. Nick Gass of Politico reports, âTexas Sen. Ted Cruz laid into The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview, remarking upon its support for amnesty that it should change its âheader to the Marco Rubio for President Newspaperâ for the next three months.â
Cruz was responding to a WSJ editorial from last week that criticized his positions on military intervention in Syria and the governmentâs unconstitutional collection of metadata.
It wasnât the first time Cruz has had a run-in with the establishment newspaper â and it probably wonât be the last, mainly because the folks writing the editorials are passionate supporters of amnesty and the business elite.
Vander Plattsâ endorsement shows Cruz is closer in ideology to the grassroots conservatives of Iowa. Whose favor would you rather have?
Jeb Bush may not have many voters, but he still has Bob Dole!
Finally this week, we all got a good laugh when the establishmentâs favorite Viagra spokesman Bob Dole announced his own endorsement about a month ago, choosing Jeb Bush as his candidate.
As if that wasnât bad enough for Jeb, Doleâs out making it worse by openly cutting into Donald Trump and Ted Cruz on his behalf.
Jesse Byrnes of The Hill reports, âFormer Republican presidential nominee Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) goes after GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a new interview.
And the people love Trump...
Yea and everyone is soooooo concerned about what Bob Dole has to say.
WSJ
Pro-Law-Breaking
RINO
Chamber of Crony Capitalist
GOPe
Amnesty
Wage Suppression via infinite immigration
Just amazing that if the “grassroots” love Cruz, why is he behind in every state poll except two . . . of FOUR . . . in IA? And way, way behind in every national poll?
When’s the national primary?
The Wall Street Journal is The Cheap Labor Express Gazette, of course they love Amnesty Rubio
I wouldn’t sweat it with your guy at 6%.
Looks like 41% of the grass roots like Trump. LOL!
When is the national primary?
Don’t sweat it. When you guy gets above 8% you can start.
Again, when is the national primary?
If any of the hopfulls are truly smart, they won't put up with silly questions.....ISSUES ARE PARAMOUNT! Immigration, terrorism, our failing educational system.....none of those things can be discussed in sound bites...however, better those issues than the dreamed of cage fights by silly people.
It’s on Super Tues. It’s over then.
Again, when your guy rises above 8%, start worrying.
Yeah and what happens if Ted Cruz starts to move up in a big way, are you going to be saying the same things?
Ted Cruz is already double that, and probably close to 20%.
But why do you care? There’s no national primary?
One of the Cruz folks has made it clear it isn’t a big deal that Trump is as 31% and Cruz at 16% nationally.
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