Posted on 02/09/2016 10:43:20 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Donald Trump may have come out of New Hampshire with the victory, but Sen. Ted Cruz has emerged as the Republican front-runner.
Though Trump's victory in New Hampshire was no doubt impressive, the electorate of independent voters and super high turnout was tailor-made for him, whereas Cruz didn't put substantial effort into winning the state - where very conservative candidates don't typically do as well. He is currently in position to win third here, with votes still outstanding.
As the race moves to South Carolina, however, Cruz has a ground game in place and the electorate is much more tailored to his strengths.
In Iowa, Cruz dominated Trump among "very conservative" voters, who made up 40 percent of the electorate, and evangelicals, who made up 62 percent of voters. But when it came to New Hampshire, evangelicals only comprised 25 percent of the electorate and "very conservative" voters dropped to 27 percent.
The South Carolina electorate is much closer to the Iowa electorate. In 2012, evangelicals were 65 percent of the electorate and very conservative voters were 36 percent of the electorate.
Furthermore, in Iowa, Cruz had to fend off Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who were all competing for similar voters. Carson received 9 percent in Iowa, and though Huckabee didn't perform well, he did serve as an anti-Cruz attack dog to evangelicals. Now, Huckabee and Santorum are out, and Carson enters South Carolina greatly hobbled.
Though the RealClearPolitics average currently has Trump up 16 points over Cruz in South Carolina, that's misleading, because none of the polls were taken after Cruz's win in Iowa.
Furthermore, now that the field has narrowed down and Trump has won a primary and proven himself a serious threat, there will be a lot more focus on his liberal record - on abortion, guns, healthcare, property rights - among other issues. It won't dissuade his strongest supporters, but it doesn't matter, because it will discourage enough very conservative voters and evangelicals to give Cruz the victory.
Which brings us to Rubio's poor performance in New Hampshire. The fact that Cruz was able to best Rubio in a more moderate state where Rubio should have been a lot stronger, is more good news for Cruz.
Had Rubio won a strong second in New Hampshire, he could have knocked Kasich and Bush out of the race and emerged as a serious threat in South Carolina. Now Rubio will still have to spend his time in the state trying to fend of Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Should Cruz carry South Carolina, he will have won two out of the first three primary states, severely wounding both Trump and Rubio. That's why he should be considered the front-runner.
Only in the GOPe twisted world does coming in 3rd, being behind in the delegate race + being down double digits in the polls = Cruz being the front runner in anything lolololol
“70% did not vote Trump. All polls say that Trump has the lowest favorability rating they’ve seen. As the field thins most of the voters who weren’t for Trump will end up voting for the alternative.”
I guess if my candidate got DEFEATED that bad, I’d be thinking the same.
You seem to not be understanding the problem: Trump didn't lose the conservative or evangelical vote in New Hampshire. He dominated that demo very easily. 70 percent of New Hampshire's primary voters were conservative, with 25 percent being "very," and the rest just conservative or slightly so. So it doesn't really matter how many conservatives or evangelicals you have. If we limited the race in New Hampshire to just those voters, Cruz's numbers only improve by 3 points. If we limit voters to just "very conservative" voters, Cruz's numbers improve to 23 percent, but Trump still wins with a 12 point lead.
Again Ted Cruz has a better ground game in South Carolina than anyone else.
Cruz was boasting up his ground game in New Hampshire, but still lost. Immediately after Iowa, he boasted that Trump's supporters didn't really exist and that he would win New Hampshire. He didn't. And as for South Carolina, Trump's ground game in SC is even bigger than Iowa or NH. It's also a primary, not a caucus, so ground games aren't even as important to begin with.
You seem to not be understanding the problem: Trump didn’t lose the conservative or evangelical vote in New Hampshire. He dominated that demo very easily
Sigh.
Again Cruz crushed Trump amongst evangelicals and conservatives in Iowa. South Carolina is just like Iowa. New Hampshire is the most Godless state in the country.
So now tied with three other losers in 3rd place is considered a win ? LOL!!! See ya in South Carolina!!!
But then that comes back to our original problem: If New Hampshire conservatives aren't really conservatives, that means the 23 percent of "very conservative" voters who voted for Cruz were godless liberals.
So that means Cruz's best numbers came from the godless.
When did he say that?
Cruz hardly spent any money in Iowa. Ted Cruz spent just $580K in New Hampshire vs a massive $32M for Jeb Bush. Cruz hardly made any effort in New Hampshire.
You can look at his concession speech for the most recent example, where Cruz claimed that his 3rd (or 4th) place win was a victory for the "conservative grass roots" which enabled him to "beat expectations." Yet Trump still won the conservative vote in New Hampshire.
Cruz's team has been talking about how many doors they've knocked on "thousands and thousands!" and their "non stop phone calls" they've been making. All of that ground game, however, didn't save Saint Rafael.
A primary is very different from a caucus, especially the one in Iowa where people were freaking writing on green slips of paper who they wanted and tossing it into a basket, where anyone could do so 5, or 10, or 20 times.
Hellloooo: Cruz DOMINATED every demographic, including the "good Christian" vote.
Only a faux Christian
Why would they suddenly lose their salvation for rejecting Ted Cruz? Is his name in the Bible somewhere? By the way, Ted Cruz isn't a Christian. He is closely tied, through both his church, father, and political connections, to the heretical movement known as Dominionism.
The Good Christians of course voted for Ted Cruz.
Hellloooo: Trump DOMINATED every demographic, including the "good Christian" vote.
Only a faux Christian
Why would they suddenly lose their salvation for rejecting Ted Cruz? Is his name in the Bible somewhere? By the way, Ted Cruz isn't a Christian. He is closely tied, through both his church, father, and political connections, to the heretical movement known as Dominionism.
You’re the only woman in a vulnerable position. haha
Cruz is done. Stick a fork in him, eh.
He will have my vote in NC.
Trump is a conservative.
Trump draws thousands of Tea Party types wherever he goes. He won the Tea Party primary in New Hampshire. He will win by 30 in SC. Sorry.
Cruz got 11.6% of the vote, Jeb got 11.3% and Rubio got 10.6%. Know why would someone that only got 11.6% of the vote be considered the front runner? Does someone have an agenda? The guy that gets 36% is really a loser but the guy that get 12% is a winner? lol. So why isn’t Jeb with the front runner he was only 1k votes behind Cruz? Dido Rubio who was also in the hunt for 3rd place.
Since NH is a LIBERAL state, and the person who wins in Iowa usually loses in NH it is not the bell weather state one would think.
Our early voting in TN starts on Feb 20, Mar 1 is Primary.
We have two big LIBERAL DEM controlled areas..Memphis which is the largest corrupt crime riddled city in Tennessee and Davidson County, with Nashville being the controlling factor there. Out side the big cities good high pay jobs are scarce. My little berg’s biggest employer is the grocery store. The rest are fast food, Dollar General or nail salons Vietnamese owned type places.
Our two US Senators and out going governor are RINOS. Because of how our primaries are held. Any time a 2 conservatives run against a RINO the RINO wins as the losing Conservative will not back down. If you can’t poll 10% drop out.
Anyone who believes that Cruz is now the front runner is truly delusional. I pity them.
No doubting which real count is larger. But there SHOULD be questions as to why, independent of the Trump vs. Cruz issue. How about the IA vs. NH issue? Iowa has 2.3M population, NH 1.3M, yet IA gets only 30 GOP delegates to 23 for tiny NH. In proportion to population that should be more like 55/23 with Cruz getting 15 and Trump 13 out of Iowa and the totals Trump 23, Cruz 17. Why does the tiny, open primary, red state get overrepresented and the larger, closed caucus, purple state get gipped? This Iowan doesn’t know why and doesn’t like it. I presume some kind of GOPe plot.
NH's liberalism only gave their electorate more moderates. They still had about 70 percent of their voters identifying as conservative, and 25 or so percent identifying as "very conservative," Cruz's strongest group. Trump beat Cruz in every demographic, including "very conservative." If we removed all other voters, all cross overs, all independents, all moderates, everyone who is only somewhat "conservative," and permitted only Cruz's strongest demo: then Trump still would have won New Hampshire by a 12 percent spread.
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