From the First Four to Super Tuesday
It started in Iowa six weeks ago today and has made its way through New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. The “first four” caucuses and primaries have been completed to open the presidential nominating season.
And as if often the case, “Super Tuesday” will hit next Tuesday with a whimper, and not a bang.
Donald Trump has won each of the first four delegate contests decisively. Depending on his margin of victory in various contests next week, he could have enough delegates to lock up the nomination by the middle of the month—almost eight months before the general election.
The Trump team claims its strategy now is to ignore the fact that Nikki Haley is still running. Probably a smart move, because Republicans will need her supporters in the November election, and more animosity from the Trump podium will make that a harder sell.
Even with 20 point and more margins of victory, the race is not that close. The number of crossover voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina have inflated Haley’s share…with many of them conceding they are only voting against Trump, and will vote for a Democrat in November. So while she is correct to say 40 percent is no small number, how many of those folks will she hold on to if she were to be the nominee?
I’m not one to call for folks to drop out of a race. The Trump team won’t be spending much money in defense against her, and the money she’s been getting likely wasn’t going to be donated to Trump anyway. Soon enough, the math will show the race is over, and Haley being an accountant will admit that numbers don’t lie.
It might be hard for her to continue much past next Tuesday, now that the PAC supported by Charles Koch is turning off the money flow. But again, not long after that, the math will be the math.
Haley’s people deny she’s staying in the race now in order to be a third-party candidate this cycle. Perhaps. But then again, she had said she would never run against Trump in a primary. Times and situations do change.
