Posted on 02/10/2016 10:23:20 AM PST by justlittleoleme
Cruz's win in the Iowa caucuses last week was, as it has been for every recent GOP Iowa winner, heavily reliant on evangelical Christians. He over-performed among this group, beating Trump 34-22 among them.
Two points here. The first is that, yes, Iowa is a very evangelical state, and not every state -- read: New Hampshire -- has the same makeup. In fact, New Hampshire is the least religious state in the country, according to Gallup, and PRRI reports only about 1 in 10 residents is an evangelical.
In this regard, though, the next few weeks of the GOP race look a whole lot more like Iowa than New Hampshire. And that is fantastic for Cruz.
-snip-
It may not shock you to see the most heavily-white-evangelical states clustered in the South. Many of them are significantly more evangelical than Iowa, where 64 percent of the GOP electorate last week was evangelical.
And here is the second point: The most evangelical states are pretty heavily front-loaded in this process -- thanks in large part to the "SEC Primary" on March 1.
South Carolina on Feb. 20 and a whopping six of the 11 states holding contests on Super Tuesday/"SEC Primary" Day on the first of March have more evangelicals than Iowa does.
And here's where it gets even better for Cruz: Heavily Christian Kansas and Louisiana and heavily evangelical Kentucky vote just four days later on March 5, followed by heavily evangelical Mississippi on March 8 and heavily evangelical Missouri and North Carolina on March 15. In fact, if you exclude Maryland and West Virginia from the definition of "Southern," the Southern states will all have voted five weeks from now.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Compost fluffs up cruise because they know he can be destroyed. Absolutely no path to the presidency.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!
Washington Post...ROFLMAO
Can’t wait till March 5th. Thanks Rand for the KY Caucus! We finally matter.
Very interesting. Thank you.
I agree. The upcoming states look very good for Cruz.
We need now to kill the establishment beast.
Mc Turdle hates Cruz KY will have a special welcome for Cruz.
I think claptrap like this piece has been proven wrong. Every Republican hangs his hat on being elected on the Evangelical vote and we have Obama. I know Cruz supporters hate to hear this but he does not need a majority of the Evangelicals or people that consider themselves very conservative. He can trade you 2 for 1 with Independents, crossover Democrats and people who agnostic politically. Be nice if the hard right and the God squad went with Trump, but he can win without you. But in the end Trump will get that group to vote for him also, the prospect of Hillary or that lunatic Sanders scares them worse.
Go, Ted, go! I will be voting for him on March 15 here in Missouri.
I think the most likely scenario is that Cruz comes in second in the GOP primary. And that is generally a positive thing.
So far, Trump has 17 delegates and the non-Trumps have 28. Needed to win: 1,237. It’s still way early. After March 1 and especially after March 15, we will have a much clearer picture.
Probably better than Cruz.
The two of them together will be the ones to slay the establishment beast.
I LOVE how they assume that the only reason someone would really want to vote for Cruz is because they are white and evangelical.
Way to subtly marginalize Cruz voters.
It may be true that Cruz has no path to the Presidency. He wasn’t my first choice for that reason. But at least I’ll be voting for someone who I have good reason to believe isn’t a progressive.
The hard truth is that a Trump defeat in the general is much more likely. He is doing nothing to deal with his giant pile of negatives. In fact, he's adding to them.
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