Kasich gets another major newspaper endorsement:
Maybe The State can be as effective an influencer as the Union Leader (who endorsed Christie right on out of the race.)
But Kasich also got the Globe, which is influential in that media market.
I don’t think newspaper endorsements carry much weight. I think the candidates would have been better off paying the SEC teams to paint their names on football fields last fall.
I think it does help if it’s a candidate with less name recognition. A voter who is having trouble deciding between Cruz, Trump, and Rubio might see, “Kasich? I’ll have to check him out.”
And once they do they say “son of a gun! He makes Bernie Sanders look young and vibrant!”
That poll has since been discredited.
Beyond that, the field hasn’t really started narrowing. Yet. So we don’t know where the various supporters will land. Nor in what proportion.
It’s pretty easy / plausible to say Christie supporters would slide to Kasich or Bush in preference to Rubio or Cruz. But they’re going to spread amongst all the other contenders to some degree and it’s only the differences in how they spread that move the needle for anyone else.
Said another way, …
If Bush explodes tomorrow and all of his national support (4 whole percent! Woot!) goes to … Kasich, then Kasich has moved up significantly in the establishment race and a smidgen in the overall R race. But if Bush’s support splits 1.6 / 1.5 / 1.4 between Kasich, Rubio, & Cruz, the impact on their standings against each other AND against the leaders is negligible.
My predictions.
Trump 33%
Rubio 25 %
Cruz 23 %
Bush 7 %
Carson 6 %
Kasich 4 %
Bush will drop out.
Carson and Kasich stay in.
The media will portray the whole thing as a victory for Rubio and proclaim that he has momentum going into the March 1st elections.
I missed that; do you have a link?
That’s assuming you meant ‘discredited’ in the sense of the poll having been shown to have been conducted badly or improperly, rather than simply being an outlier, which it clearly is.
I don’t see Bush giving up until March 2. I think this will be it for Carson. I agree that the media will spin this as a Marco surge.
My apologies for sloppy writing.
I meant that subsequent polls have shown it to be an outlier. I did not mean there’s evidence it was shoddy or fraudulent; AFAIK there is no such evidence.
No prob, thanks for clarifying!
I hope you’re correct with the first two predictions. Carson dropping out would probably help Cruz more than Rubio. I think the longer that both Cruz and Trump are viable, the better the chances that this election will blow up in the Republican’s face. I’m still hoping for a brokered convention.
I think the goal for Kasich is just to beat Bush. Bush is all in in SC and Kasich just isn’t. For Kasich to beat Bush would mean the end for Bush.
Because Kasich was already all-in in NH and it didn’t gain him much.
Of Kasich, Bush, and Rubio, only one can survive SC/NV if any are to have a chance. Otherwise it’s
Trump and Cruz. Makes a man proud, don’t it?
I agree on all three.
With respect to the Marco surge prediction, a few days ago Atrios said:
If he finishes third as expected in SC, the media will barely notice that he hasn’t finished better than third anywhere yet, and say he’s doing great. And if he squeezes by Cruz to finish second, he’ll be the second coming of GWB as 2000 Presidential candidate.
Agreed. He hopes to be one of two in the alleged traditional lane by the multistate primaries.
From that same site poster David Derbes opines that if either Trump or Criz get the nomination that it will mark the end of the Republican Party. That strikes me as a bit of a hyperbolic statement, but I don’t think it’s too far off if I change it to “the end of the Republican Party as we know it.”
Well it seems that there already has been an end to the Republican party as we knew it …
From Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan to Bush the First to Bush the Second to the rise of the Tea Party to the rise of Trump … the Republican Party seems to constantly not be quite as we knew it just a cycle or so before.
So if the party is to be something not as we know it again, what do you think the changed version will be like?
Truly fitting given the contemptible state of this once “Grand” but now hemorrhaging and gangrenous Party:
Pro-Cruz Robocall Attacks Trump Over South Carolina Confederate Flag