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 ...
It’s a pity that your classy and fair-minded comments aren’t the standard these days.
Thanks HoustonSam, I like many others have gotten caught up in bitter arguments and gone off the rails on numerous occasions. Almost all of us here feel very passionate about our politics and our country. What Jim Robinson and friends have built has been a unique labor of love that gives us each an opportunity to learn from each other. We tend to learn the most after being challenged by those that we do not agree with.
I hope that you are wrong about Rubio now becoming the eventual nominee. After he locked up on stage following his confrontation with Christie I thought that the curtain had been pulled off of his candidacy and he was done. To me he still seems like a two faced lightweight who would be ill prepared to lead our country forward. In his defense, when you consider likely opposition in the general... I will be happy if we at least get someone who will nominate conservative justices and not veto what congress sends up to reverse the damage Obama has done.
In my experience every presidential election cycle creates a great deal of excitement and stress at Free Republic but this year has been off the charts. Could anyone even make this stuff up? In many ways the stakes for this country have never been higher. These are exciting times to say the least!
well said, which is why I don’t care for Cruz. He reminds me of an “Elmer Gantry”. Of the remaining three candidates, Trump and Rubio are the only ones that can defeat Clinton. Cruz will not win Independents and the Reagan Democrats. Rubio is in my view a deeply religious man, he just doesn’t throw it in your face, he seems to me to more live it. If you live Religion, you don’t need words. In todays modern world “being preachy does not work”. The Western word has succumb to an almost “militant individualism”, i.e. nobody will tell me, etc, etc, etc.
Those that “do religion”, in my view aka Pope John Paul II or Mother Theresa or more likely to convince a secular culture than those that “preach to people”. If Cruz wanted to preach, he should have been a Protestant Pastor rather than Presidential candidate.
Personally, I am in for Trump, and I respect him for challenging Pope Francis on immigration, that took lots of guts and I don’t think it will cost him one bit with White Ethnic Catholic Voters like myself (i.e. Americans of Italian, Irish, Polish, ancestry).
Do I agree with him on everything, no, there is no candidate that can fit that bill. But I do think Trump can win against Hillary, Rubio as well. Cruz doesn’t have a chance in a general with Clinton, in my opinion.
Rubio will be the nominee and you will have Ted Cruz to thank for it. It’s 2008 all over again and you got a Huckabee all over again. Prayer for your kids, Ted is about to give them 30 million more people to compete against in the future for jobs etc
BINGO
Trump got the Franklin Graham nod. Cruz has the holier than thou attitude. Also, Glenn Beck is like an anchor around Cruz’s neck. As long as Cruz continues to trot him around on the campaign trail he will be held back.
LOL! You're like Rubio - you repeat your canned trumpspeech, even when it's applicability is zero. Since your reading comprehension suffers, I'll repeat what I wrote:
"He has a history of enriching himself, while leaving wreckage behind for his partners..."
Where in that statement you found cause to determine that I was somehow mistaking his business bankruptcies for personal bankruptcies is beyond anybody's comprehension. Unless you thought I meant "partners" in the gay roommate sense!
But you trumpaloompas know which song your supposed to sing when any truthful but embarrassing fact is raised about the great orange one.
Please, grow an intellect and build it up strong and at least bring arguments relevant to the point raised. The mindless and irrelevant Stepford repetition is so tiresome.
Good luck to your candidate going forward.
And the repetition of bitterness out the butts of cruzbots on FR is getting a bit stale, also.
But you cant ruin my mood today, no matter how much bitterness you spew out your butt.
Have at it!
Keep those sphincters working overtime!
Ted has 2 big problems alright:
1. Glenn Beck. Oooops.
2. (Contributing to 1 above) Amateurs running his campaign.
Quick—what’s Ted’s slogan? Anyone? Beuler?
What’s Trump’s? Uh huh.
What’s Ted’s logo? The Islamic calligraphy word for allah. Google it.
That's at least the 700th response I've gotten from a trumpranger that fixates on the human rectum.
It's one of the more disturbing characteristics of your weird cult. Seriously.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/04/ted-cruz-voicemails-ben-carson-exclusive-audio/
“Dr. Ben Carson will be [garbled] suspending campaigning following tonight’s caucuses.”
Right there.
So, as you can see and hear, Cruz’s campaign lied about Carson. They chose to make the leap to a conclusion that was false, and they spread that false conclusion to voters.
Then Ted Cruz lied about this himself in his own voice at his press conference in South Carolina.
I don’t think Ted Cruz is the who you think he is.
We describe what we see. We are observant.
And I am in a great mood today and can only imagine how I would feel if my candidate failed in EVERY COUNTY in a state that everyone agreed in advance was a good state for him. You know, lots of conservatives, lots of evangelicals, just what your candidate needed. Then add in his fantastic GROUND GAME and, well, how could he lose?
Oh yeah, he did. In every county. OUCH.
Maybe you should get some different magazines.
Congratulations to your candidate and good luck going forward.
Theater for theater’s sake is called hypocrisy by our Lord. Nothing is forbidden about using the medium of drama to express a gospel message, but even then it would be honest drama. You’d know by the context that you are being presented with a play, an opera, etc.
Also, since SC had open primaries, Trump garnered a lot of cross over votes from Democrat unbelievers who also did not cotton to the Cruz theater. I’ve seen enough of what actual gospel means to understand that Christlike Christian faith would look like something attractive and the bigger question for an honest common witness would be why doubt it, rather than why believe it. Only the keepers of rival religious systems would be giving it serious challenges.
Touche!
Not everyone believes the hype about Iowa and that Cruz is bad.
Exit polls in SC revealed more voters saying it was Trump who ran the dirtiest campaign.
“This is not the time to nominate a left leaning populist”.
Amen to that. It is a long time to November, so lets hope that we understand the implications of your post!
ms , odawg wrote:
“If they voted that way because of that reason they were missled by the media not the popeâ€
Trump was up in the polls about the same before the Pope’s remarks. Probably had no effect.
Trump responded to what he thought was a direct persomal attack by the Pope which was shared and agreed to by everybody including this Catholic . That is the difference.
Thanks.
“No, I’m a Cruz supporter and very proud of him for that. I’ll only vote for Trump if I have to. Insulting each other can only be detrimental to discourse and to this site”.
DOUBLE AMEN !
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