Posted on 02/20/2016 10:43:13 PM PST by springwater13
72 percent.
That's the number of Republican voters in South Carolina's primary that identified as evangelical or born-again Christians, according to exit polling. That's an eye-popping, record-shattering figure: It was 65 percent in South Carolina's 2012 GOP primary, and 60 percent in 2008.
With three-quarters of the electorate identifying as evangelical, it was shaping up as a great night for Ted Cruz, who launched his campaign at Liberty University and has boasted of building a "firewall" to dominate the March 1 southern states because of their ultra-conservative, religious composition. South Carolina represented the first test of that theory.
Cruz failed. Among South Carolina's evangelical Republican voters, Trump won 33 percent, Cruz won 27 percent, and Rubio won 22 percent. And while Cruz did carry the 38 percent of "very conservative" voters in the state, it wasn't enough to finish anywhere close to Trump. Nor was it enough to beat Rubio, whom he finished roughly 1,000 votes behind.
This spells trouble for Cruz on Super Tuesday. He remains better-organized than any other candidate across the south (which should make a difference, considering both Trump and Rubio benefited from having impressive field operations in South Carolina). But there's no question Cruz's inability to carry the evangelical vote here portends poorly for him in states of similar ideological and demographic makeup.
That's a big problem for Cruz on March 1. But he faces even bigger challenges beyond then. Both Trump and Rubio performed evenly with non-evangelicals in South Carolina: Trump took 30 percent, and Rubio took 22 percent. But Cruz saw a significant drop-off, winning just 13 percent of that group. This echoes Cruz's performance in Iowa (33 percent with evangelicals, 19 percent with non-evangelicals) and New Hampshire (24 percent with evangelicals, 8 percent with non-evangelicals).
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Accountability for what? Reporting what CNN said?
What kind of “accountability” do you think there should be for a candidate repeating the report of CNN, based on what Carson’s own team had told CNN?
Lol!! More like...
ConcocTED Retread??
Calling in the riches, to the mountains.
Wonder what his PACs think about that ;-)
You’re welcome. That is a concern of mine, as well.
Back it up back it blub blub blub ...
TRUSTED
Accountability for not having a message that resonated with the majority of SC primary voters. Heck, he didn’t even win with evangelicals in SC...that was supposed to be his bread and butter. It’s not over by any means, way too long to go yet, but as far as the SC primary the voters have spoken. Cruz would do well to examine what went wrong and fix it, because NV is about to take place.
How quickly we forget.
I don’t think he’s a spoiler. I’m voting for Trump next week here in Georgia, but I expect Cruz will take second. I am disappointed that he didn’t best Rubio but it is understandable from a state that elected Lindsey Graham and now has Nikki Haley as governor.
From my perspective, I don’t look at SC as a bellwether of Red State outcome across the south, certainly not with Rubio.
From what I gather from another poster this is something new and as yet not circulated
There should be a Conservative Christian Party, separating the sheep from the goats, as it were. Perhaps that will come about soon...or Bible believing Christians will simply drop out of politics and take care of their own families and neighbors. If Christians would do that, instead of shifting that responsibility to ungodly government, the results would be better.
Jesus does not require Christians to be involved in the political arena, only that they “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” which means paying taxes. We would have to do that to Muslim conquerors, as Jews in Jesus day did to their Roman rulers.
Christians ought to be preparing for their next life, spending more time on the Scriptures than on the computer. God is in control and the earth’s Last Day has been set from its beginning.
Yep. The guy lacks charisma, some pols have it, some pols don't. JFK, Reagan, Clinton, W. have it. LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Bush Sr. don't.
Ted's a lawyer, let him prosper doing lawyer stuff. He'd better serve the country as either the Attorney General or fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. President? Nope.
And he's funded all the way through to the convention. He'll continue to siphon off potential Cruz votes.
More importantly Cruz apparently is not appealing to anyone beyond the very conservative label.
That's nice for very conservative people to know and to admire, but they are about 15% of the Republican base vote. There is no pathway to victory with that number.
Rubio, on the other hand, is clearly in favor of amnesty. The very issue that is vehemently opposed by very conservative people is the very definition of a Rubio candidacy.
Will the very conservatives deny their basic objection and vote for Rubio or will they turn to someone else? I don't know Carson's real position on the border. I know it now looks like Trump, Rubio, Cruz, Carson, Kasich. Kasich is Bush on amnesty. Cruz has no pathway to victory. Trump is vehemently anti-illegal immigration, and despite the venom on this and his other positions, he even beat Cruz among evangelicals. He won every group across the state: conservatives, evangelicals, moderates, military. He won every district. He took every delegate.
Will very conservative people choose Trump or Rubio is the real question here.
You are on it! Very well stated.
That isn't even close.
No one here objects to Cruz calling himself a Christian.
I personally object to the fact that his behavior doesn't line up with his claim.
But you knew that too.
Amazing how quickly that fact disappeared from the scene. Proof to me that even among self-styled conservatives, social conservatism remains at best suspicious and at worst deeply unpopular.
I never thought about it this way; you might be right!
He’s been libeled.
Right now I am so angry at Carson I could spit. Check it out: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3399816/posts?page=77#77
Carson’s people lied to frame Cruz as leaking the story about a “closet meeting” between Cruz and Carson against Carson’s agreement, when in truth the first report that came out (and the source for EVERY report in the media) was a hit-piece against Cruz written by somebody who admitted that their source was the CARSON campaign. There was NO word of this from the Cruz people, just a hit-piece against Cruz while the Carson campaign lied about Cruz “leaking” the story. CRuz has said nothing about the story even when asked to do so. So exactly what report was the CArson camp disgruntled over? The only report that showed up was The Daily Beast, which acknowledged it was the CARSON camp that was their source.
Sickening!
But he’ll get away with it. The narrative of a slimy Cruz has been written and nobody’s gonna let the truth get in the way of a good old-fashioned lynching.
The establishment party that Rubio represents 100% passed on pulling taxpayer funding for planned parenthood for selling baby parts. Do you really think Rubio will do ANYTHING?
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