“It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint and I think this is really nothing compared to what you’re gonna see after the war is over.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by BuzzFeed, on the first day of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Is Bush Finally Done?
“Jeb Bush has been fighting all week to dismiss talk of his demise,” the Washington Post reports.
“But his final South Carolina campaign event here felt bittersweet on Friday night. Staffers and volunteers hugged warmly, realizing that they had just one more day to convince Republicans to pick their guy. The hugs came as aides strongly denied reports that staffers are shopping their resumes in anticipation of the campaign’s conclusion.”
One Last Look at the South Carolina Polls
Sam Wang: “It seems likely that Donald Trump is headed for another win today – but a closer one than I would have expected even a few days ago. In 4 polls taken February 16-19, the medians are Trump 33%, Rubio 20.5%, Cruz 18.5%, Bush 9.5%, Kasich 8.5%, Carson 6%. Rubio may do even better than these numbers would indicate, since his surge is quite recent.”
Nate Silver: “But unlike in the general election, where the polling average usually gives you a fairly precise estimate of where the race will end up, the South Carolina polls could still wind up being way off. We warned you about this before Iowa, where the polls mispredicted the order of finish, and likewise before New Hampshire, where they were closer to the mark (although hardly perfect). We’re probably going to have to keep warning you until the Republican race settles down to only two or three major candidates — multiway races are historically associated with much larger polling errors.”
Why Nevada Is So Hard to Poll
Clare Malone: “For starters, when it comes to surveying public opinion, Nevada is still very much the Wild West, and pollsters may be unwilling to gamble their reputations on the state: Nevada is among the hardest places to poll in the nation, with a spotty track record to prove it.”
“Nevada populace’s is still pretty unfamiliar with caucusing, making for difficult polling work.”
“Nevadans are also notoriously hard to pin down for a survey. Many work night shifts, thanks to the state’s thriving hotel and gaming industry, meaning that they aren’t home to answer the phone in the evening, when polling calls are typically placed… And given that the state’s population is highly transitory — the bright lights and job prospects on the Strip draw people in like moths to a flame — phone calling can itself be a highly inefficient process.”
Cruz and Carson Met in a Storage Closet Last Night
Daily Beast: “The meeting, called by Ted Cruz in an attempt to mend fences with Ben Carson ahead of the South Carolina primary, was held on Thursday night before the Conservative Review convention. The two huddled in the unusual venue for nearly 20 to 25 minutes, as Carson’s Secret Service detail stood outside, according to a Republican operative who witnessed the strange scene.”
“Carson, whose campaign has spent the weeks after Iowa blasting Cruz for lying to voters in the Hawkeye State, agreed to meet him for five minutes, according to a source close to Carson’s campaign, to try to put to bed the issue of his dirty campaign tricks in Iowa, during which Cruz’s campaign told caucus-goers that Carson had dropped out of the race.”
Trump Hails Mass Execution of Muslims
At a campaign event in South Carolina, Donald Trump praised the mass execution of Muslims in the Philippines by telling an apocryphal story about General John Pershing, MSNBC reports.
Said Trump: “He took fifty bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood. And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the fiftieth person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?”
Campaigns Flying Blind in Nevada
Politico: “There have been only two public surveys in Nevada this week, and pollsters warn that the caucuses — a system only recently implemented in the state and typically attended by very few Nevadans — are nearly impossible to predict. That’s frightening for those wondering whether Clinton can sustain her Nevada firewall or whether Sanders’ momentum can bring a surge of young voters to the caucuses.”
For members: We May Be Surprised in Nevada
Bush Staffers Already Looking for an Exit
“Several Jeb Bush campaign workers are already shopping their résumés with Florida political consultants as expectations mount inside his team that their candidate won’t push on after South Carolina,” Politico reports.
Said one Bush donor: “I can unequivocally tell you that people are looking for work, because they say they’ve been led to believe that they won’t have a job because the campaign won’t be around any longer or their jobs won’t because the campaign won’t have any money.”
High Stakes for Republicans in South Carolina
“The Republican presidential candidates hurtled across South Carolina on Friday, one day before the state’s primary, as polls showed the race tightening after an often nasty week of campaigning,” the New York Times reports.
“As the Republican field winnows, nearly all of the remaining contenders need to deliver strong performances. A big victory by Mr. Trump would give him momentum that could add a sheen of inevitability to his candidacy heading into the crucial March 1 contests, when 12 states vote, many of them in the South.”
For members: Setting expectations in South Carolina
Rubio Surges In New South Carolina Poll
A new Opinion Saavy poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leading with 27%, followed by Marco Rubio at 24%, Ted Cruz at 19%, Jeb Bush at 11%, Ben Carson at 8% and John Kasich at 7%.
For members: South Carolina primary cheat sheet
DNC Fundraising Effort Helped Clinton Get New Donors
Washington Post: “Behind the scenes at the DNC’s summer meeting last August, campaign officials for Hillary Clinton were making a hard sell to the state parties… they urged state officials to sign onto an ambitious fundraising endeavor that would allow Clinton’s presidential bid, the DNC and the state parties to scoop up and share big checks from wealthy donors. It would mark the earliest creation of a joint fundraising committee between a presidential candidate and the party, and it would be the biggest ever, thanks to a 2014 Supreme Court decision that knocked down a cap on how much donors could give to federal campaigns in a single year.”
“A record 32 state parties signed on to the fund, allowing the committee to solicit donations 130 times greater than what a supporter can give to Clinton’s campaign for the primary.”
“But the states have yet to see a financial windfall. Meanwhile, Clinton’s own campaign has been a major beneficiary, getting an infusion of low-dollar contributions through the committee at a time when rival Bernie Sanders’s army of small donors is helping him close in on her financially. The fund is run by Clinton campaign staff, and its treasurer is Clinton’s chief operating officer.”
Trump Accused of Financially Threatening Woman
“Donald Trump, embroiled in a long-running legal battle with former students of his defunct Trump University, has been accused in recently filed court papers of threatening to financially ruin the woman who is a lead plaintiff in the suit,” Yahoo News reports.
“Trump’s comments, according to the filings, came in a secret deposition he gave just two months ago, on Dec. 10 — the same day he was making international headlines over his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants from the country.”
Trump In the Poll Position
Alan Abromowitz: “These trends suggest that Donald Trump should be considered a solid favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination. Since 1996, no candidate leading by such a wide margin in national polls after the New Hampshire primary has failed to win a major party nomination. The only caveat here is that Trump is a very unusual Republican frontrunner. No Republican frontrunner since Barry Goldwater in 1964 has generated anything approaching the level of resistance among Republican Party leaders and elected officials that Trump has generated.”
“So far, however, their resistance has had little impact on GOP voters, partly because the party ‘establishment’ has been unable to unite behind a single alternative to Trump and partly because many of these party leaders and elected officials dislike Ted Cruz even more than they dislike Donald Trump. The results of the South Carolina primary on Saturday and the Nevada caucuses three days later should provide further evidence about whether Trump’s march to the GOP nomination will continue unimpeded or suffer a serious setback. Based on the most recent polling in both states, the former seems much more likely than the latter.”
Setting Expectations in South Carolina
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More Democrats See Sanders as Electable
A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that 72% of Democrats now believe Sen. Bernie Sanders could win the general election, a 21 percentage point increase from the last time the survey was conducted in December.
“Clinton’s campaign has argued that as voters learned more about his record, Sanders will begin to lose support. Instead, it seems that as Sanders has gotten more scrutiny, support for him has only grown. While Clinton continues to be the Democratic candidate who’s most well-liked within her own party, Sanders is gaining on her.”
How Pope Francis Helped Donald Trump
Rick Klein: “Usually Trump needs creativity – and a certain amount of gall – to shamelessly change the subject at just the right moment. With one answer to a reporter aboard his plane, the pope did the hard work for Trump. Sure, having perhaps the world’s most prominent religious leader say you’re ‘not Christian,’ just days before a primary dominated by religious voters, may not seem helpful. But Trump has shown there’s no public feud he can’t win.”
“It’s hard to imagine evangelicals who might have supported Trump suddenly abandon him because the leader of the Catholic Church raises questions about his values and compassion. And – in classic Trump style – he used the episode to display indignation and anger. His hardline anti-immigration message gets some late airing, blocking out questions about, say, his positions on abortion and the war in Iraq.”
Your South Carolina Primary Cheat Sheet
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Exchange of the Day
Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Scott Pelley on CBS News:
PELLEY: You know, in ’76, Jimmy Carter famously said, “I will not lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, I have to tell you I have tried in every way I know how literally from my years as a young lawyer all the way through my time as secretary of state to level with the American people.
PELLEY: You talk about leveling with the American people. Have you always told the truth?
CLINTON: I’ve always tried to. Always. Always.
PELLEY: Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave yourself.
CLINTON: Well, no, I’ve always tried —
PELLEY: I mean, Jimmy Carter said, “I will never lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say, “Have I ever?” I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the American people.
