It’s Cruz, not Trump, who looks more like favorite to win GOP nomination

[Torie]

So says Chris Cillizza.  Gosh, this election season sucks. What a nightmare.

[Why]

Cruz is favorite in Iowa but beyond that, NH lacks promise, SC and Nevada probably are not going to be great either. Then Super Tuesday, will he do well enough there to match Trump?

[Landslide Lyndon]

Cruz is favorite in Iowa but beyond that, NH lacks promise, SC and Nevada probably are not going to be great either. Then Super Tuesday, will he do well enough there to match Trump?

If the establishment candidates continue to split their vote then Cruz might ride on his Iowa momentum and come second behind Trump.
Also, why the heck do you say that South Carolina lacks promise for him? He is an evangelical conservative Southerner, it's the perfect state for him.

[Why]

Cruz is favorite in Iowa but beyond that, NH lacks promise, SC and Nevada probably are not going to be great either. Then Super Tuesday, will he do well enough there to match Trump?

If the establishment candidates continue to split their vote then Cruz might ride on his Iowa momentum and come second behind Trump.
Also, why the heck do you say that South Carolina lacks promise for him? He is an evangelical conservative Southerner, it's the perfect state for him.

I am an idiot

[Bull Moose Base]

Cillizza, Dec 13, 2015

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7 months ago...

Only one Ted Cruz vote?

Here's why her's underrated:

Movement conservatives and social conservatives are Cruz-Crazy.

They're a big factor in Iowa, where Cruz may be better positioned than anyone but the fragile Walker

It's true Huckabee and Santorum didn't convert Iowa wins into nominations but Huckabee had a real chance to win South Carolina. If he had, who knows? Santorum only won by 8 votes and wasn't even known to be the winner until Gingrich was already leading or closing in on Romney in South Carolina.

He'd have fewer hurdles than Huckabee who wasn't just rejected by the establishment but also some anti-establishment opinion leaders like Limbaugh who railed against Huckabee (but loves Cruz). He's a much, much better fundraiser than either Huckabee or Santorum.

Yeah the establishment would work hard to stop Cruz if he won Iowa, but it's not clear to me they could. Even less clear if he wins both Iowa and South Carolina.

I also talked up how the calendar helps him somewhere but I can't find it.

But Cillizza doesn't argue against Trump's strength just for Cruz's. He just says "Trump being Trump has problems" which pundits (including him) have said all year only to watch him grow his lead. Trump has an even bigger lead in the other early states than Cruz has in Iowa, also has strong appeal in the South and can spend as much as he chooses to. If Iowa and New Hampshire went as polls now show, either one of them could plausibly win South Carolina, the subsequent southern states or the nomination. It could even be a long 2-man race like Obama vs Clinton.

[Lief 🗽]

Didn't this Cilizza guy say Trump was finished because he attacked his beloved John McCain? He's a useless hack who rarely does anything but regurgitate the (consistently wrong!!) conventional wisdom.

Not as bad as that fraud, Nate Silver, though.

[Edu]

Disregard this guy.

[RI]

Nah, it's okay because he put question marks at the end of the headlines, invoking Betteridge's Law.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I am convinced that the Establishment will do whatever to stop Trump.  The only way to do it without a messy convention is to make Cruz the "Establishment" candidate.  It's coming.  Losing with Cruz will do the GOP less harm than losing with Trump.

[Phony Moderate]

I am convinced that the Establishment will do whatever to stop Trump.  The only way to do it without a messy convention is to make Cruz the "Establishment" candidate.  It's coming.  Losing with Cruz will do the GOP less harm than losing with Trump.

What would a Dem equivalent scenario look like? The Establishment backing Bernie Sanders to stop Michael Moore?

[Phony Moderate]

Rubio will win the nomination.

But enough about the Oscars.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I am convinced that the Establishment will do whatever to stop Trump.  The only way to do it without a messy convention is to make Cruz the "Establishment" candidate.  It's coming.  Losing with Cruz will do the GOP less harm than losing with Trump.

What would a Dem equivalent scenario look like? The Establishment backing Bernie Sanders to stop Michael Moore?

I think the Democratic Establishment would prefer a candidate who combs his hair.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I am convinced that the Establishment will do whatever to stop Trump.  The only way to do it without a messy convention is to make Cruz the "Establishment" candidate.  It's coming.  Losing with Cruz will do the GOP less harm than losing with Trump.

I was under the impression that the GOP estabilshment holds a deep hatred for Cruz. Is their dislike of Trump enough to overcome that?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Voters got tired of Trump, and his stances. At least it isnt Rubio.

[Lief 🗽]

Voters got tired of Trump, and his stances.

wtf are you talking about



doesn't look like people are getting tired of trump to me

[Pandaguineapig]

Voters got tired of Trump, and his stances.

wtf are you talking about



doesn't look like people are getting tired of trump to me

Feb 1st will be a very sad night for you

[Holmes]

Voters got tired of Trump, and his stances.

wtf are you talking about



doesn't look like people are getting tired of trump to me

Feb 1st will be a very sad night for you

January 3rd, 2012 wasn't a sad night for Romney. Neither was August 30th.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Cruz looks to have an excellent shot at winning Iowa, placing second, albeit a distant second in New Hampshire and then winning South Carolina.  If that happens, he'll likely get the establishment to coalesce around him as the anti-Trump and win the nomination.  Trump needs to keep his opposition from coalescing around a single candidate until it's too late.  Too soon to say what'll happen.

[Bull Moose Base]

Cruz looks to have an excellent shot at winning Iowa, placing second, albeit a distant second in New Hampshire and then winning South Carolina.  If that happens, he'll likely get the establishment to coalesce around him as the anti-Trump and win the nomination.  Trump needs to keep his opposition from coalescing around a single candidate until it's too late.  Too soon to say what'll happen.

The irony is in a scenraio where the early states are won only by Cruz and Trump forcing the establishment to rally to Cruz to stop Trump, the establishment has already been proven incapable of stopping anything.

If Cruz wins Iowa and Trump New Hampshire, either winning South Carolina seems likely. It'd be a critically important state to put one ahead. Would they still play nice?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I wouldn't go quite that far, but Cruz is a good debater, and is doing well in Iowa, so he certainly has a chance.

[Mr. Morden]

Cruz looks to have an excellent shot at winning Iowa, placing second, albeit a distant second in New Hampshire and then winning South Carolina.  If that happens, he'll likely get the establishment to coalesce around him as the anti-Trump and win the nomination.  Trump needs to keep his opposition from coalescing around a single candidate until it's too late.  Too soon to say what'll happen.

The irony is in a scenraio where the early states are won only by Cruz and Trump forcing the establishment to rally to Cruz to stop Trump, the establishment has already been proven incapable of stopping anything.

Disagree.  "Rallying to Cruz to stop Trump" would involve, for example, things like local party elites putting the party machine to work for Cruz in Super Tuesday states and big donors dumping a bunch of money on anti-Trump ads.  If they're not actually trying to do that on anyone's behalf in the first four states, that doesn't mean that if they do try it in Super Tuesday states, that it's not going to work.

There's also the fact that the dynamics of the one-at-a-time-in-smallish states stage of the primary calendar in February is fundamentally different from the many-states-vote-at-once stage in March.  Maybe Trump gets by "on the cheap" in the early states, but if he's unwilling to spend big in March states, he could be more vulnerable there.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I am convinced that the Establishment will do whatever to stop Trump.  The only way to do it without a messy convention is to make Cruz the "Establishment" candidate.  It's coming.  Losing with Cruz will do the GOP less harm than losing with Trump.

I was under the impression that the GOP estabilshment holds a deep hatred for Cruz. Is their dislike of Trump enough to overcome that?

Very much so, in my opinion.  Cruz, who has certainly aimed his fire on other prominent Republicans at times, is still a US Senator, still an elected Republican, still a guy who is vested in the Republican Party as Trump never could be.  Cruz has a strong constituency of LOYAL Republicans within the GOP; his supporters, however vocal, have always held their noses and voted for the McCains, Trumps, and Bushes.  His supporters aren't sometime voters, and they aren't returning Perot/Buchanan 3rd party voters.  This matters much. 

Because he is a sitting US Senator, Cruz is vested in the health of the National Republican Party.  However much he may be at odds with its current leadership, he isn't going to throw out the baby with the bathwater, as Trump MIGHT do.

Cruz is the ONLY candidate in the race that is a bridge to the Trump and Carson constituencies.  Note that Carson didn't get much flak when he threatened to leave the GOP if the Establishment Fix was going to be in.  No one jumped on him because Carson merely stated the obvious; that the supporters of Trump, and many of his supporters, would be deeply resentful if, having won the votes of primary voters, Donald Trump or he was denied the nomination by subterfuge, or by blatant wheeling and dealing.  This is sort of an issue where Cruz can have his cake and eat it too; he can be the loyal Republican which every Trump and Carson supporter can view as somewhat sympathetic to their viewpoints.

Jeb can't be that candidate; he's disliked by the grassroots.  Christie, Kasich, and the undercard losers are in the same boat.  People are taking a second look at Christie, but he's going to be viewed as a candidate forced on the grassroots, and that's not going to happen

Rubio can't be that candidate; he's coming off as a little twit; the kid who got an A on the test, but who has minimal experience.  (Cruz projects as far more experienced than Rubio, even though Rubio actually has MORE government experience than Cruz.)

Cruz is the Establishment's bridge to the insurgents.  The only viable bridge.  And they need the insurgents to win.

[Mr. Morden]

On domestic issues at least, the main split between Cruz and the other candidates is over process, not policy.  Cruz is a "procedural extremist" in the sense that he's willing to push things like government shutdowns in order to press the GOP agenda, and doesn't worry about the backlash.  But if Cruz was elected president, and had a GOP Congress, then I guess government shutdowns would be unnecessary, because the party would control all branches of government.

That said, party elites may also be worried that he has too many sharp edges, and isn't warm and fuzzy enough to be competitive in a national election.  By on policy, they don't necessarily disagree with him too much.  At least on domestic issues.  On foreign policy, many of them don't trust him.  Though they trust Trump far less.