Donald Trump is crusading against the Nevada caucuses, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “A lot of strange things happen here. The caucus system is dangerous, to use a very nice word. It’s sort of a dangerous system.”
Donald Trump is crusading against the Nevada caucuses, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “A lot of strange things happen here. The caucus system is dangerous, to use a very nice word. It’s sort of a dangerous system.”
“Donald Trump’s Republican rivals are seeking to make a stand against him in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday, their last chance to slow his momentum before a dozen states vote on the party’s presidential nomination next week,” the New York Times reports.
“But it may be difficult to stop Mr. Trump in Nevada, where he has enjoyed a high profile because of his business dealings in Las Vegas and where only a small number of voters have typically participated in the caucuses.”
Politico: “Nevada is Donald Trump’s to lose. That, you can take to the bank. But variables that will crystallize the state of the race heading into next week’s Super Tuesday contests — the size of Trump’s expected win and the race for second place between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — remain wild cards here as Republicans head out to caucus on Tuesday.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Ohio finds Donald Trump leads the GOP primary race with 31%, followed by John Kasich at 26%, Ted Cruz at 21%, Marco Rubio at 13% and Ben Carson at 5%.
Said pollster Peter Brown: “A Kasich Ohio win is crucial to the Republicans trying to stop the New York businessman’s nomination. If Trump can defeat Kasich in his home state, that would be an impressive demonstration of his strength in a state that is just now getting attention.”
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, 55% to 40%.
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A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll finds Donald Trump still leading the GOP field nationally with 36%, followed by Ted Cruz at 19%, Marco Rubio at 16%, John Kasich at 8% and Ben Carson at 8%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, 51% to 40%.
Wall Street Journal: “Allies of Ohio Gov. John Kasich are beefing up their political operation as the presidential primary season intensifies, with his super PAC saying it now has a staff of more than 50 and 14 offices in a dozen states voting next month.”
“In Michigan, which holds its Republican primary March 8, New Day for America opened three offices and added 14 staffers, a spokeswoman said. In Ohio, where the primary is March 15, the super PAC has seven offices and eight staffers, with another three to join the payroll in the next week.”
A new Landmark/Rosetta poll in Georgia finds Donald Trump leading the GOP primary field with 32%, Marco Rubio at 23%, Ted Cruz at 19%, Ben Carson at 8% and John Kasich at 8%.
In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, 72% to 20%.
Pew Research: “In the high-stakes battle over replacing Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, a majority of Americans (56%) say the Senate should hold hearings and vote on President Obama’s choice to fill the vacancy. About four-in-ten (38%) say the Senate should not hold hearings until the next president selects a court nominee.”
“As a senator more than two decades ago, Vice President Joe Biden argued that President George Bush should delay filling a Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, until the presidential election was over, and that it was ‘essential’ that the Senate refuse to confirm a nominee to the court until then,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Biden’s words, though uttered long ago, are a direct contradiction to President Obama’s position in the battle over naming a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia.”
“As long as this is a multi-candidate race and Trump keeps getting 35%, he’s going to pick up delegates. That’s just a fact of life. If he gets 35% and the other 65% is split among three or four candidates, then he gets the majority of delegates. Until this is a two-person race, he has the inside track, but I’m not sure it becomes a two-person race in time for anyone to beat Trump.”
— Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), in an interview with WMUR.
Politico: “A string of elected officials, GOP insiders and prominent donors officially threw their support behind Rubio on Monday, calling him their last chance to take down Donald Trump. Their statements had another common theme. Some explicitly called for Kasich to quit, while others stopped sent the same message by saying the Ohio Governor’s ongoing presence is holding Rubio back.”
“Mainstream Republican donors and elected officials are swiftly flocking to Sen. Marco Rubio amid a growing sense that is he is the last best chance to prevent Donald Trump from running away with the Republican nomination,” the Washington Post reports.
“But Rubio’s path remains narrow and perilous. He has yet to win a state, and a raft of major March 1 contests known as “Super Tuesday” offers few obvious chances for him to do so. And if Trump keeps racking up wins, it will become more difficult to blunt his progress. Increasingly, there is a recognition among Republican elites that if Trump is not slowed by the middle of March, it may be too late to prevent him from winning the nomination.”
For members: How the Establishment May Be Killing Rubio
Sen. Ted Cruz announced that he had asked for the resignation of his senior communications director, Rick Tyler, for spreading a false report about Sen. Marco Rubio, the Huffington Post reports.
Cruz said that Tyler was “a good man” but that he had “committed a grave error of judgment” and that “even if it was true, our campaign should not have sent it.”
New York Times: “Mr. Cruz has been facing mounting allegations of dirty tricks by Mr. Rubio’s team over the false story. And the Cruz campaign has also been getting hammered after his allies spread a false rumor that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign — just as voting in the Iowa caucuses began.”
New York Times: “When Jeb Bush formally entered the presidential campaign in June, there was already more money behind him than every other Republican candidate combined. When he suspended his campaign on Saturday night in South Carolina, Mr. Bush had burned through the vast majority of that cash without winning a single state. It may go down as one of the least successful campaign spending binges in history.”
Jonathan Chait: “George W. Bush’s presidency did none of these things. His administration was an abject disaster both domestically and abroad. Jeb Bush never figured out how to divest himself from his brother’s failure, and by the end reduced himself to running openly as his heir, bringing Dubya to campaign with him in his South Carolina box canyon stand. The Bush disaster presented Jeb with a double trap he could never escape. His brand was poison for swing voters. And conservatives, who had fallen mostly in line with Dubya during his presidency, were forced to disavow him as a heretic by the end so that their ideology could escape the wreckage.”
“The direction of Republican politics since 2008 is mostly the continuing momentum of this explosion. One direction of Republican strategy has taken seriously the premise that Bush failed because of his moderation, and tried to steer the party toward a more austere version of the faith. That is the Cruz version. The Trump version is more of an inchoate rebellion against the party’s donor class and its ideas, embracing nationalism and affect. Marco Rubio represents the true continuation of Bushism within the party — massive tax cuts plus neoconservative foreign policy plus soft-pedaled social conservatism, all sold in a compassionate package with lots of high-profile outreach to Democratic constituencies. Rubio allows Republicans to double down on Bushism without saddling themselves with the liability of the Bush name or, by extension, acknowledging that they still believe Bush’s ideas work.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told WABC that Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. John Kasich should unite in an effort to bring down Donald Trump.
Said Graham: “I think a Kasich-Rubio ticket would be great. Rubio-Kasich, Kasich-Rubio — I think those combinations, if they could consolidate and come together, would be [a] very potent ticket in the fall and maybe help us stop Trump,” Graham said on the program before also floating a potential “Rubio-Kasich-Cruz alliance.”
For members: One Way Rubio Could Win
Mark Halperin: “Cruz is making noises about winning Texas and Arkansas; Kasich is making a big play in Michigan and his home state; and Rubio is eyeing his own home state. But the reality is that Trump is in a position where he could win all or nearly all of the 30 states that vote in this period. Even if he lost a few, his most ardent opponents in the party now concede, based on his performances in New Hampshire and South Carolina, that he will win the lion’s share of the delegates in this skein. Republican rules allow winner-take-all contests to begin on March 15, making a delegate comeback more feasible than in the other party, but it would be unheard of in the history of modern politics for a candidate to win almost all of the first 33 contests and the bulk of the delegates and then lose the nomination.”
“A weekend of pressing strategists in both parties for the most likely scenarios under which Clinton and Trump don’t have their nominations effectively sewn up by March 15 produced nothing that sounded plausible as of now, let alone likely.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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