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Nevada: Some Good News For Both Hillary and Bernie
Analysis: South Carolina GOP Primary, Nevada Democratic Caucus
Polling of tomorrow’s South Carolina GOP primary gives Donald Trump a clear lead, so it looks very likely that he will win the Palmetto State. The key question is margin: does he win big, or does he underperform (or even overperform)?
The more interesting race on the Republican side is for second place. The last couple of polls show Marco Rubio overtaking Ted Cruz for second place. This is probably going to be close, but with the recent endorsement of Rubio by Gov. Nikki Haley, I think he does slip past Cruz to take second. Rubio likely will be assisted by the continuing fade of Jeb Bush and the fact that John Kasich appears unable to build on his second-place finish in New Hampshire.
If the South Carolina Republican primary plays out as expected, then it will put Rubio back in front of the establishment pack and probably mark the moment when the Bush and Kasich campaigns begin seriously reassessing the point of staying in the race. Both are polling in the low-double digits to high-single digits, and their prospects continued viability will not look hopeful if, as expected, they end up in a battle for fourth place, far behind the top three finishers. Whoever finishes the lowest between these two may hang around long enough to roll the dice at next Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada, but the loser (especially if it’s Kasich, who doesn’t have Bush’s financial wherewithal) is probably out shortly thereafter. Whoever performs better in this two-man race likely hangs in, just in case Rubio falters again, but the fifth-place finisher is all but certainly going to be out of the race in a matter of days.
Ben Carson, of course, has no chance to be the nominee; at this point and going forward, he can only hurt other candidates. If he places ahead of Bush and/or Kasich tomorrow, it might well do enough damage to whomever he defeats as to end either or both campaigns right away. More importantly, he now remains the only impediment to Cruz in the evangelical lane. Carson has raised a shocking amount of money, so he may stay in regardless of his performance tomorrow, but if he does, it benefits Trump and Rubio.
My predictions, based on the recent polls and trends:
- Trump
- Rubio
- Cruz
- Bush
- Kasich
- Carson
In the Nevada Democratic caucuses, there has been very little reliable polling, and polling tends to be off for the Nevada caucuses at any rate. I expect Hillary Clinton to win a narrow victory over Bernie Sanders, but honestly, this is an educated guess. There just isn’t much data there. If Sanders has gained significant ground among Latinos, he could certainly prevail. There’s just no reliable way to tell yet.
President Obama Should Nominate Elizabeth Warren
We know, of course, that the Republican majority in the United States Senate is not going to approve any candidate President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court. With the death of Antonin Scalia, the conservatives have lost their 5-4 majority on the court and whoever is chosen to replace him will tip the balance. The Republicans would far rather take their chances on the coming election and wait it out in the hopes that they’ll be able to appoint another conservative in January 2017.
Of course, Twitter is abuzz today with all of the potential “blue state” Republicans and halfway reasonable GOP Senators who might be persuaded to join Democrats in approving a nominee, but this is a fantasy. These theories all leave out the facts that there will never be enough aisle-crossers to break a filibuster (which would require any nominee to get 14 Republican votes, not four), or that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) does not even have to call a vote.
So clearly this isn’t going to happen. The next president and the next Senate will select Scalia’s replacement, period.
With this understanding, President Obama and the Democrats should be thinking about how to gain the maximum political benefit from Republican intransigence. And the way to do that is to nominate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) to fill the vacancy.
There is no question of Warren’s qualifications. The former Harvard Law professor has impeccable credentials, so Republicans could not claim she is unqualified. It would therefore become clear, if it wasn’t already, that they were blocking her for strictly political reasons, and this would diminish their standing with the few true swing voters.
But there are greater political benefits to be had. First, a Warren nomination would provide a jolt of energy to progressives who adore her, which could be crucial in terms of base turnout in the upcoming election. Secondly, nominating a fourth woman to the court would reiterate that Democrats are the party of equality.
Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders could take this ball and run with it, hammering the Republicans for blocking an eminently qualified (progressive, female) nominee. Meanwhile, the president can also exploit this situation to hammer the Republicans every day.
There is no need to worry about who would replace Warren in the Senate because, as noted above, there is no chance in hell the Republicans will approve her (or anybody) between now and the next presidential inauguration. So if the Republicans want to play hardball, the Democrats have a great way to win the war by losing the battle.
Kasich: The Only Adult In The Room At The GOP Food Fight
Supreme Court Becomes Top Issue In Election
The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has added a major new dimension to the 2016 elections, as what was previously theoretical is now an undisputed fact: the next president of the United States, and the Senate sworn in the first week of January 2017, will determine whether the Supreme Court will have a liberal or conservative majority. Scalia’s death leaves the court with four liberals and four conservatives, so the next justice will become the swing vote.
Of course, it must be immediately understood that the current Republican-controlled Senate will not approve any appointee that President Barack Obama nominates. With Republicans holding a 54-46 majority, the president would have to get four Republican Senators to support his nominee, with Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie. While there may be a slight possibility of getting four Republicans, there is no chance whatsoever that the president would get the 14 Republican Senators he would need to break a filibuster. It probably won’t even come to that. It is doubtful that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) would even allow a nomination to come to the floor.
It is not difficult to predict how this issue will play out over the course of the election. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida) will angle for votes by promising to filibuster any candidate the president nominates for the remainder of his term. They will also use this opening to undermine Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump by telling conservatives that they can’t trust Trump to appoint a “true conservative” to fill Scalia’s vacated seat. All the other Republican candidates will also promise to appoint a “strict, constitutional conservative,” but Cruz and Rubio, the only Senators in the field, will have the advantage here, and they’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
The Democratic presidential contenders will both stress to their bases the opportunity inherent in this situation to change the composition of the court away from its longtime conservative majority. Hillary Clinton will hammer home to the Democratic base the idea that she is more electable than Bernie Sanders and that it is crucial to nominate the candidate with the best chance to win the election, in order to ensure a liberal majority on the court. Sanders will cast this as an opportunity to bring about revolutionary change and may well float the idea of appointing Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) to the court.
President Obama will likely hammer the Republican Senate at every opportunity between now and the election for refusing to act on his nominee or nominees and leaving a Supreme Court seat vacant for a year or more for political reasons. All candidates of both parties will stress the need for their party to control the Senate in 2017. With Senate control up for grabs this year, this will be a key point of emphasis.
This election just got ratcheted up to Defcon 1.
Hillary Drops The Bomb On Bernie
Hillary Clinton went nuclear on Bernie Sanders at the end of tonight’s debate when she brought up his interview with Thom Hartmann in which Sanders called President Obama “weak” and “disappointing” and called for a primary challenger to the president in 2012. Despite Sanders aide Tad Devine’s factually challenged insistence on Hardball With Chris Matthews that Sanders never called the president weak, here’s the videotape: http://youtu.be/t8N8E1v7E58.
Sanders’ response that Senators have the right to be critical of the president was weak tea. Of course Senators have the right to differ with the president, but his extremely biting, personal comments about the president being “weak” and “disappointing” will undoubtedly be a sore spot with Obama supporters.
Clearly, Clinton is going after Sanders on these comments in order to rile and engage President Obama’s supporters heading into the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary. She followed up with an amazingly strong closing statement in which she made the point that she was not a single-issue candidate. More importantly, she broke out of what seemed to be a very managed, handled performance at times and exuded authenticity and passion.
Sanders had some good moments, and his very intelligent disquisition on American interventionism was probably his best foreign policy moment ever. But Clinton blew him out of the water at the end. Her play here may have been obvious, but it was effective.
Winners and Losers (New Hampshire Primary Edition)
WINNERS
Let’s start with the obvious. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are the big winners tonight. They both won by crushing margins.
Trump is a really YUUUUUUGE winner tonight, because the upcoming primary calendar puts him in a very strong position. I have to think he’s going to do very well in South Carolina and the South in general, and that’s where the bulk of the contests between now and March 1st are going to be. By three weeks from now, he could have a substantial lead on the Republican side.
Sanders does not appear to be set up nearly as well as Trump in the coming weeks, but the magnitude of his victory and his strong victory speech tonight are bound to get him a look from some people who hadn’t considered him before. I’ll be very interested in seeing how he does in Nevada on Feb. 20. But he has got a big job ahead of him to cut into his deficits with nonwhite voters, and if he can’t do that, he won’t be the nominee. Sanders is on the clock. He’s got a couple weeks to change that dynamic.
John Kasich won by placing second tonight, but he doesn’t have the personality, the charisma or the money to take charge of the GOP’s “establishment lane”. I doubt he’ll win very many more contests. Kasich placing second was the absolute worst thing that could have happened to the GOP establishment (for reasons to be explained below). His rambling, touchy-feely speech tonight demonstrates that he is out of touch with the mad-as-hell GOP base. He’d better enjoy tonight, because there won’t be many more celebrations.
Ted Cruz, who’s in a dogfight for third place with Jeb Bush, did just well enough not to be hurt, and he benefits by the fact that the “establishment lane” no longer has a frontrunner.
MEH
Bush passed Marco Rubio tonight, which he’ll call a victory, but he’s still going nowhere. Then again, with Rubio in free fall (at least for now) and Christie done for (see below), he might still have a chance at coalescing the establishment lane. But he’s got a lot to overcome.
LOSERS
Everybody else, but in particular Rubio and the Republican establishment, who tie for biggest loser of the night. Rubio, riding a wave of momentum after a strong finish in Iowa, was poised to take over the “establishment lane” in the GOP contest. There was a feeling that the establishment wing of the party was likely to pull the plug on Kasich, Bush and Christie and coalesce behind Rubio.
Then the debate last Saturday happened, and Rubio absolutely embarrassed himself. It looks like he may finish fifth in New Hampshire. Suddenly, the establishment lane is wide open again, which helps Trump and maybe Cruz. The longer there is no united front behind one candidate on the establishment side, the more victories Trump and Cruz will win. The utter failure of Rubio in last weekend’s debate creates an establishment vacuum that Kasich is not big enough to fill.
The next biggest loser is Chris Christie. He took down Rubio but didn’t help himself. He’s headed for sixth place in a state that really should have been exactly the kind of place he should have won. He managed to place in the bottom half of the field, with less than 10 percent of the vote, even after being endorsed by the most powerful conservative newspaper in New England. Even if he stays in the race, he’s dead.
Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Jim Gilmore aren’t even relevant enough to be among the biggest losers. What they’re hanging around for is beyond me.
And Hillary Clinton is in the loser category as well. By getting blown out tonight, she guarantees herself at least a week and a half of bad headlines and endless questions about “What’s Wrong With Hillary’s Campaign?” But of all tonight’s losers, she’s the one in the best position. She still has a friendly calendar and a massive superdelegate lead, and she is still the frontrunner, despite all the prophecies of doom we are going to hear over the next couple of weeks.
Forecasting New Hampshire
Last week in Iowa, even vaunted pollster Ann Selzer got it wrong, missing Ted Cruz’s win over Donald Trump, and nearly getting hung with an L in the Democratic caucuses as well. It just goes to show that polling remains an unreliable guide.
This is the key lesson I take from Iowa as I look ahead to New Hampshire tomorrow. Yes, all polling shows Trump way ahead on the GOP side, and Bernie Sanders way ahead on the Democratic side. Both are clearly likely to win, but that isn’t going to be the key story.
On the Democratic side, the key question is the final margin. Hillary Clinton has unquestionably been cutting into Sanders’s lead. I suspect the final margin will probably hover right around 10 points–a good, solid win for Sanders, but compared to his huge polling margins, a win that might feel a bit like a loss.
On the GOP side, the key question is who places second and third. If it’s Trump, Rubio, Cruz, in any order, that’s significant, because that’s probably the end for everyone else. But after Marco Rubio’s disastrous debate performance on Saturday, the door is now open for John Kasich to run strongly. Kasich probably doesn’t have the persona or the raw ability to make a real run, but the longer he, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie can delay Rubio’s consolidation of the vaunted GOP establishment, the better it is for Trump and Cruz.
Given the fact that the most interesting action is on the GOP side, I expect the bulk of independents and moderates to vote in the Republican primary. That probably benefits Sanders, who will benefit from a more liberal Democratic electorate, and also Kasich.
Therefore, I expect Sanders to defeat Clinton by about 10 percentage points, and Trump to win a closer-than-expected victory over Kasich, followed by Cruz and Rubio. I expect Bush, Christie, Carson, Fiorina and Gilmore to fill out the field, in that order.
Iowa Caucuses Come Down To Turnout
I know better than to question Iowa super-pollster Ann Selzer, so I predict that Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic caucuses tonight and Donald Trump wins on the GOP side. Not only does Selzer have one of the best track records in the business, but the preponderance of polls in Iowa are in concord with her final polling released Saturday.
I will, however, offer one caveat: turnout.
All polling shows that Bernie Sanders and Trump tend to do better among those who have not caucused previously. If turnout is high tonight, they both stand to benefit. If it is lower, a win for Clinton is assured, and Ted Cruz could overtake Trump on the GOP side.
Additionally, on the GOP side, I expect the performances of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum to be tepid enough that both will drop out in the coming days. Both would need to do well in the evangelical-dominated Iowa caucuses to have a path forward, but clearly there is more competition for evangelicals this year, and this is diluting their share of those votes. We’ll need to wait and see on Carly Fiorina.
Democrats Unlikely To Recapture Senate in 2016
Mr. Kyle Kondik at the University of Virginia Center for Politics put out a great preview today of the 2016 U.S. Senate picture. His conclusions are almost identical to the conclusions at which I have arrived in recent weeks, and because he beat me to the punch on publishing it, I am afraid that my own analysis is going to look quite unoriginal. I highly recommend Kondik’s analysis, which is first-rate.
As to my own analysis, I am generally in agreement with Mr. Kondik. Despite the fact that Republicans are defending 24 Senate seats in 2016, compared to only 10 for the Democrats, very few of those seats actually appear as if they are likely to be competitive at this point. In fact, at this moment, I only see eight of those 34 races as likely to be competitive, with six of those eight seats currently held by Republicans, and two by Democrats.
On the Republican side, seats that appear they could be competitive at this moment are as follows, in order from most to least competitive:
Wisconsin—Sen. Ron Johnson
Illinois—Sen. Mark Kirk
Pennsylvania—Sen. Pat Toomey
Florida—Sen. Marco Rubio
New Hampshire—Sen. Kelly Ayotte
North Carolina—Sen. Richard Burr
With the exception of Illinois, which is safely Democratic in presidential politics, the remaining five states on the aforementioned list are likely to be closely contested in the 2016 presidential race, which should also give a boost to the competitiveness of Senate races in those states. That said, only about half of those races are pure toss-ups, as Mr. Kondik noted in his article this morning: Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Once again in concert with Kondik, I consider Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin the most vulnerable Republican Senator seeking reelection in 2016. Unlike Kirk in Illinois and Toomey in Pennsylvania, Johnson has done very little to appease the moderate center. Kirk is an old-school Illinois moderate, which is the only kind of Republican who can win in that state, and he hails from the “collar counties,” the ring of heavily populated suburban counties around Chicago that can still go Republican if the GOP nominates a moderate. Kirk consistently won a Democratic-leaning U.S. House district along the North Shore for years, so he knows how to do this and will be difficult to beat, even in a presidential year. Toomey helped himself considerably with moderates when he teamed up with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on the gun issue following one of the recent massacres; his approval ratings in Pennsylvania shot up.
Additionally, Florida could turn into a tossup if Rubio foregoes another Senate run in order to run for president, but as my guess is that Jeb Bush will seek the GOP presidential nomination, I doubt Rubio will run against his fellow Floridian. Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, now a Democrat, could make this an interesting race if he decides to run.
Ayotte is personally very popular in New Hampshire, but could face a tough race if equally popular Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan decides to challenge her. And Burr, while certainly the favorite right now in North Carolina, could possibly get a good race from outgoing Sen. Kay Hagan, who narrowly lost her seat this fall against a disastrous backdrop for Democrats. Hagan, by all accounts, ran a great campaign but just couldn’t overcome the midterm environment. Longtime Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper is also a contender.
So any or all of those six races could be ripe, but Democrats would need to win at least five of them to retake the Senate by the barest majority, and that, at this time, seems unlikely.
Complicating matters is the fact that two Democratic Senate seats could be vulnerable in 2016. Sen. Michael Bennet faces reelection in Colorado, and while he should be buoyed by presidential-year turnout—unlike his Democratic colleague, Sen. Mark Udall, who lost this year—if the GOP gets a good candidate, this seat is far from safe.
Also potentially in danger in 2016 is Democratic Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. Although he won in a terrible environment for Democrats in 2010, he was also facing an extremely weak Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. If current Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval decides to take a swing at Reid in 2016, this seat becomes a tossup at best for Democrats. Nonetheless, presidential year turnout could still save Reid, even if the highly popular Sandoval jumps in.
There are also some potential wild cards. A report today in the Daily Kos indicates that former Democratic governor Ted Strickland may be considering a run against Republican Sen. Rob Portman in 2016. Strickland, a popular governor who barely lost in the 2010 tidal wave, could turn this into a tossup. But if Strickland does not run, it is hard to see anybody else from Ohio’s gruel-thin Democratic bench giving Portman any heartburn. Also, Gov. Jay Nixon (D) could give Sen. Roy Blunt (R) a challenge in Missouri if he decides to run, but Nixon’s handling of the Ferguson mess might cost him crucial African-American support, without which he absolutely cannot win.
One final wild card comes from a very unexpected place: California. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) appears to be headed for retirement, with a war chest of only about $200,000 right now.
While on first glance it appears that California would be a safe hold for the Democrats, the state’s “top-two” system advances the top two candidates from the primary, regardless of party. Because the state has a spectacularly deep Democratic bench, it is not entirely unimaginable that half a dozen or more Democrats may run, especially considering how rarely a Senate seat comes open in California. A lot of top-notch Democrats have been waiting a long time for this chance, so there could easily be a plethora of Democrats against only two or three Republicans in the “jungle primary.” In such a scenario, six or seven Democrats could so divide the Democratic vote that two Republicans could finish in the top two, even if they only combine for about 40 percent of the total vote, which would give the GOP the unlikeliest of pickups. Such an eventuality would be a catastrophe for the Democrats and would all but foreclose the possibility of retaking the Senate in 2016. See an excellent recent post by Jeff Singer in the Daily Kos for further details on this potential development and the dozen or so potential Democratic candidates who may consider a run.