Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) “raised serious concerns about Donald Trump’s surging presidential bid, becoming the highest-ranking congressional Republican to express fears about the real estate mogul’s candidacy,” CNN reports.
Said Cornyn: “We can’t have a nominee be an albatross around the down-ballot races.”
New York Times: “Hoping to avoid a repeat of the messy fight for the Republican nomination in 2012, the party drew up a calendar and delegate-selection rules intended to allow a front-runner to wrap things up quickly.”
“Now, with Republicans voting in 11 states on Tuesday, the worst fears of the party’s establishment are coming true: Donald J. Trump could all but seal his path to the nomination in a case of unintended consequences for the party leadership, which vehemently opposes him.”
FiveThirtyEight: Who’s on track for the nomination?
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D) is out with a brutal ad tying Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to Donald Trump. Expect to see many more ads like this in U.S. Senate races around the country.
“The New York Times is sitting on an audio recording that some of its staff believes could deal a serious blow to Donald Trump who, in an off-the-record meeting with the newspaper, called into question whether he would stand by his own immigration views,” BuzzFeed reports.
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (I) tells the Associated Press that he’s split between backing Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump for president.
Said Ventura: “People give them no PAC money, no special interest money. To me, that’s the most important thing.”
“Does anybody think Donald Trump is a racist? I don’t. I mean, I really don’t. I don’t know of anything in his life that indicates that this man has racist tendencies.”
— Mike Huckabee, in an interview on Morning Joe.
Here are some new of the Republican presidential race in states that vote tomorrow:
Alabama: Trump 42%, Rubio 19%, Cruz 16%, Carson 11%, Kasich 5% (Monmouth)
Oklahoma: Trump 35%, Cruz 23%, Rubio 22%, Kasich 8%, Carson 7% (Monmouth)
Texas: Cruz 33%, Trump 32%, Rubio 17%, Kasich 7%, Carson 6% (ARG)
Massachusetts: Trump 47%, Rubio 15%, Cruz 15%, Kasich 11%, Carson 2% (UMass)
Justice Clarence Thomas has asked questions during a Supreme Court argument for the first time in 10 years, the AP reports.
“Thomas’ unusual silence over the years has become a curiosity. Thomas has said previously he relies on the written briefs and doesn’t need to ask questions of the lawyers appearing in court.”
Jonathan Chait: “The old Rubio strategy was not successful at winning primaries, but it was successful at making people like Rubio. Rubio has ranked at or near the top of lists of voters’ favorite second-choice candidates. As Nate Cohn points out, Rubio has time to catch up and overtake Trump, even if he loses every state on Super Tuesday. But Rubio’s strategy hinges upon successfully taking down Trump without losing his own currently wide, but relatively shallow, base of support. Will Republicans still like the new, mean, pee-pants-calling, dick-length-mocking Rubio just as much as the old, winsome version?”
“It is possible that Rubio’s mockery will finally bring down Trump. But even if so, Rubio’s popularity might come down along with him. In that case, the conflict will redound to the benefit of the candidate who is currently running the now-discarded Rubio game plan: John Kasich. The Ohio governor is using versions of the old, well-received Rubio message about refusing to attack fellow Republicans and bringing people together.”
New York Times: “Mr. Trump, unlike most presidential candidates, does not shrink from addressing, and in some ways legitimizing, the wildest of hypotheticals… Part hair-salon gossip, part purveyor of forwarded conspiracy emails, Mr. Trump has exploited the news cycles of an Internet era in which rumors explode like fireworks and often take a long time to burn out. Mr. Trump’s willingness to touch on what passes for fact on fringe websites puts him in a unique class for a national major party front-runner.”
Said Nielsen: “Now, I’m of the understanding that in many cases of rape it does not involve any pregnancy because of the trauma of the incident. That may be true with incest a little bit.”
He added: “I read a lot of information. I have read it several times… Being a father of five girls, I’ve explored this a lot.”
Nate Silver: “If a realignment is underway, then it poses a big empirical challenge. Presidential elections already suffer from the problem of small sample sizes — one reason a lot of people, certainly including us, shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Trump’s chances early on. Elections held in the midst of political realignments are even rarer, however. The rules of the old regime — the American political party system circa 1980 through 2012 — might not apply in the new one. And yet, it’s those elections that inform both the conventional wisdom and statistical models of American political behavior.”
Democratic strategist David Plouffe told Politico that Republican efforts to coalesce around one alternative to Donald Trump are too little too late.
Said Plouffe: “It needed to happen two, three weeks ago.”
He added that the GOP nomination is completely in Trump’s control: “If he can land the plane, he wins.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders said that his campaign had already raised $36 million this month and was aiming to top the $40 million mark by the end of the day, the Washington Post reports.
“If successful, the Vermont senator would nearly double his take from January, a sum that was viewed as astonishing at the time for a candidate who relies almost entirely on online contributions to fuel his race against Hillary Clinton.”
Joshua Green: “Dropping out would violate the logic of Cruz’s whole political career. And anyone acquainted with his character and ambition should probably assume, as I do, that he won’t. Although his odds of winning the nomination are long, Cruz is bound to do what’s best for Cruz… That will entail staying in the race all the way through to the Republican convention in Cleveland—no matter what happens.”
John Oliver does to Donald Trump what 16 Republicans presidential candidates have failed to do so far.
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.
