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 ...
Trump will win Nevada easily. It’s a casino capital after all. Not to mention a Romney state. Cruz has tons of states he can get momentum in in March. See list here:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3399812/posts
When the point seems to be to sell the box to America, it’s difficult to think outside of it.
Yet Trump said Cruz is a loser because he stood up and called McConnell a liar rather than making deals with McConnell.
You’re angry with the GOPe so you’re going to send somebody who will schmooze and deal with them instead of somebody who exposes their lies?
The problem is if Cruz were to leave you’re assuming his voters would suddenly bow down to the guy who has said more positive things about crappy dictators like Putin and Un than he ever did about their candidate. I mean, how stupid must they be to support an unstable illegal alien liar who can’t get along with anyone because no one likes him?
What pushed Rubio to win over Cruz was Trey Gowdy, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. Even with those 3 - he barely beat Cruz. He won in the capital city area and that’s the seat of state government.
Ted has been a Senate hero. Deserves all that credit. This was his first run. Reagan didn’t do so well his first time: most thought he was a joke. I’m sure Ted has learned a lot and will be back.
High five on the Trump win tonight, BFAC!
After listening to that Ricky Tyler last night - Ugh, no wonder Cruz is having such a hard time. He is one nasty person. Cruz needs to ditch him - he isn’t doing his candidate any favors.
Welcome to Free Republic. Now that Cru has been neutralized are you GOPe’ers turning your attention back to Trump?
I know the plan is to knock out all of the non-establishment Republicans so that when you attack Trump they will have nowhere to turn but Rubio or Kasich. Tell Roce that you may be a little premature.
I’m angry too but I still keep my head on. Cruz should just run ads of Donald Trump praising how smart Obama was and how great his stimulus package was..otherwise the Democrats will just run them if Trump is the nominee. Its unbelievable and unsettling where we are now.
Great post.
“How many Democrats voted in the GOP primary?”
Not enough to have made a difference.
What we need is a strong leader and a fighter. Trump believes in the Constitution, he isn’t as well versed as Cruz is, I’m sure, but, Trump is successful and people in this country are hurting. They care about their families and putting food n the table right now. It’s still and always has been - the economy. Being a Constitutional scholar doesn’t move the needle for most people. But, hardship and being able to better oneself and put a roof over their heads - now that speaks volumes to the voters.
That may well be the case. One thing Trump definitely has - and that serves him well and would serve the country well - is a lot of executive experience, and his team reflects that. I don’t think that Cruz’s team is serving him very well. I don’t think they understand how fed up the people are with the same old political games.
Some of these fundamentalists have a thing against Catholics particularly the Pope. That story the MSM cojured up about the pope singling out Trump being a non christian may have turned this within that group.
But the pope never mentioned his name in his lengthy if actually one said, does, did, such and such response to a rather lenghty question by a so called reporter. As it was meant to be a generalized position applied to anyone who has those views.
If they voted that way because of that reason they were missled by the media not the pope
No. My plan is to look past SC as an oddity that produced Haley and Graham. The plan is too see Cruz through to the nomination seeing as he’s the only conservative and the only anti-establishment candidate. Donald Trump is like Lyndon Johnson. He’s just in this to work with establishment in the other party.
Jeez, you just never quit with the insults.
I’m so excited for what our future holds and I’m so dreadfully sorry that Cruz is not the answer at this time.
But please, stop being so crude and tossing comments out that insult good and decent people. Being for Cruz doesn’t make you better, just different.
I don’t think it is Trump people who are calling Cruz a liar. I think it is GOPe trolls, many of whom signed up in the past six months, who are using that meme to take down Cruz. They are doing that so that the race is between Trump and the GOPe candidates Rubio and Kasich. Then they will turn their guns on Trump and try and destroy him as well so that the conservatives will either vote for the GOPe candidate or stay home.
Just watch. Many of the posters who are ridiculing Cruz will disappear if it becomes clear that he is neutralized. Then new posters will come in to mock Trump in the same Alinsky-like way.
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