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Gov. Terry Branstad sent shockwaves through his state by publicly urging Iowa Republicans to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz in the caucuses next month. But while analysts like Chris Cillizza correctly note the GOP establishment hates Cruz, Branstad’s comments actually hurt the establishment candidates.

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Most analysts still believe that despite the chaos of the Republican presidential campaign, a winner is most likely to emerge by mid-March.

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An emerging narrative suggests that an establishment Republican — such as Marco Rubio or Chris Christie — won’t need to win one of the early voting states because they can rack up delegates in traditional blue states like Massachusetts and California which vote later in the process.

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It’s hard to know why some of these people ever decided to start running for president, so trying to predict when they’ll stop isn’t easy. From what we know today, here’s my best guess:

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The New York Times drops in at a fundraiser for Sen. Ted Cruz held by longtime GOP operative Mary Matalin which raises the question of whether Cruz is becoming a more acceptable candidate to the GOP establishment.

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A few random items:

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The electoral coalition that came together to put Barack Obama in the White House — mil­len­ni­als, people of col­or, col­lege-edu­cated whites and single wo­men — is once again the key to the Democratic chances of retaining the presidency. As Ron Brownstein notes, these groups “are grow­ing in the elect­or­ate, and if Demo­crats can turn them out and main­tain their re­cent ad­vant­ages among them, Re­pub­lic­ans could win the pres­id­ency only by amass­ing daunt­ingly high mar­gins among all oth­er whites.”

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No one follows the primary calendar more closely than John Putnam, a political scientist at the University of Georgia. His site, Frontloading HQ, is indispensable for anyone trying to game out when the presidential primary race might be over.