Even if Cruz dropped out and every single one of his voters went to Rubio, the Trump Train would still take Florida:
“Marco Rubio is getting clobbered by Donald Trump in home state of Florida, where a Quinnipiac University poll shows the frontrunner is polling at an all-time high in the Republican race for president.
Trump’s 44-28 percent lead over Rubio reflects the momentum of the New York billionaire’s string of first-place finishes in the last three early state races, and it blunts the Florida senator’s argument that he’s the only candidate who can defeat the frontrunner in a one-on-one race. …”
Note: In other news, a good new poll for Cruz has him up +15 in Texas over Trump.
Todd Harris, media consultant/advisor for Rubio campaign (via Twitter):
“Media needs to chill. The FL Q poll #’s are way wrong. We are going to win Florida. Period. Take it to the bank”
As someone who is part of the Trump campaign in Florida, I take this statement personally. There will be no “let up” in our operation between now and March 15th, I can assure you of that.
Not surprisingly, we’ve been getting incredibly positive responses anytime we go anywhere in person (the phone banks… another matter). North of Orlando, Florida is basically like any other Southern state.. plenty of right-thinking people.
Hail Victory.
What happens on the phone banks please. I’m about to start phone banking for Minnesota. I want to be prepared.
Well, the phone banks give you a cross-section of the general population– not just like-minded voters– so things can get very combative at times. Most frustrating thing is they want you to “stick to the script”… in other words, you can’t defend Trump using the language you’d like to use. Because of this, the experience is rather stifling, and I far prefer the face-to-face messaging because people can see that you’re just a regular guy (like them) and you can get some of the “wink wink, nod nod” White identity politics across.
Phone banks have been going mostly great here in Minnesota. People stop me as soon as I say Donald Trump and say, “brother!”.
Florida:Rubio::Texas:Cruz, in that both need to both win their own states and win an absolute majority, otherwise it’s over for them. And neither one is close.
Cruz will get knocked out on March 1. But that will give Rubio 15 days to get his shit together in Florida and talk all the Cruz supporters over to his side. And like you said if he wins Florida he lives to fight another day.
Cruz and Rubio are taking up separate lanes, the trew conservatives and the party establishment, respectively. One’s supporters aren’t going to just universally and 100% jump to the other, because there’s no love lost between trew conservatives and the party establishment. I think that, even if both Cruz and Rubio become quixotic, both will stay in the race until the very end.
But you just said Cruz needs to both win his own state and win an absolute majority, otherwise it’s over for him. He’s not gonna win an absolute majority. Not going to happen. So unless he wants to be Ron Paul he has to drop out on March 2
Ron Paul 2008, yes. In 2012, Ron Paul cut a (foolish) deal with Romney, leading to his son’s Detroit Republican fiasco.
Is trump having a mixie
I suspect Cruz does indeed want to be a Ron-Paul like figure. Or else he wants to split the vote, to make Trump look weak.
If Cruz cared about America, he’d endorse Trump. Trump is the stronger candidate.
You are correct. But with his ego, I don’t see him dropping out, ditto Rubio.
I don’t see either of them dropping out either. It makes sense from their point of view because they can rely on the GOP establishment to pull out all the stops at the convention in the attempt to deny Trump. Dirty tricks at its best. Hopefully Trump will have enough momentum by then that it will be all for naught, but you have to figure that that’s what they’re planning on.
If Trump gets to 1237 delegates based on primary and caucus votes, then there will be no brokered convention and no convention shenanigans possible.
I’m very glad to hear that.
This is unambiguously good; Cruz is irrelevant, Rubio is who they want to give the stolen nomination.
According to Karl Rove, this race is still wide open.
*smirk*
Plenty of bad blood being created in this campaign. I hope it’s enough to destroy the Republican party.
Florida is winner take all, so Rubio needs to finish in first. If he doesn’t all over.
The others, save perhaps Carson, are going on policy. Trump is debating about personal qualities and being alpha male. They haven’t figured that out yet.
The GOP flops are flooding the field to keep Trump under 50%. That way they can strongarm the others and put all the delegates into their chosen puppet. I thought they were gonna choose Jeb cause his brown boy Prescott is who they have big plans for, but Little Jebbie did so poorly his donors dropped him. Rubio is poison, but the donors don’t care. They probably figure since they own both parties that voters have no choices, but one of their stooges. Sam Colt has given Americans another option though. The General Washington elitist removal policy for redistribution of power to the American people.