Did Ted Cruz Make The Right Play In Florida?
Marco Rubio has always been a long shot to win his home state of Florida. Not a single poll there since last July has shown the Florida senator overtaking GOP front runner Donald Trump. However, while Trump appears certain to win Tuesday’s primary, it seems to be Sen. Ted Cruz who is serving up the deathblow.
Going into the Florida primary, Cruz, the number two candidate in the GOP campaign, could have approached the race in two very different ways. He could have sat back, stayed out of the state and perhaps let Rubio pull off a win by leveraging Cruz's leftover voter base. Then the two could have gone on and duked it out over the next few weeks with Trump holding far fewer delegates.
Or, Cruz could continue to campaign in Florida, denying Rubio potential access to a new crop of followers, and instead help hand the state directly to Trump.
So far it’s clear that he has chosen the latter.
“Ted Cruz is not trying to win Florida, he’s trying to knee-cap Rubio so he can get it down to a three-person race. Ideally he wants to get it down to a two-person race,” said Ford O’Connell, former adviser to John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “Asking politicians to put the team ahead of their own personal self-interest is like asking a thief to stop stealing—he’s looking at it as protecting Ted Cruz—because he’s thinking that, ‘If we go to a contested convention, I won’t come out on top.’”
While Rubio has a long history in the state, having started there as a member of the Florida House and moved up the ranks to senator, Cruz has more of a defined voter base that comes out to support him in every state.
“Rubio has no base to fall back on,” O’Connell said. “Trump has wiped every base of voters. Cruz has a mixture of the tea party constitutionalists and hardcore conservatives. Who does Rubio have? Establishments? Establishment is the big word of 2016, but no one can define it.”
Florida Could Be Last Stand For Both Rubio And Anti-Trump Campaign
Florida is the final frontier for GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, who must squeeze out a win in his home state Tuesday if he hopes to have even a remote chance of getting the nomination. But just as supporters shift from boasting about Rubio’s momentum to whispering and accepting his likely defeat, a last-ditch effort has emerged in the Sunshine State of another kind. Anti-Trump PACs are mounting a media blitz to thwart a Donald Trump win in Florida.
“There are only two people who can win Florida: Trump or Rubio, and right now it looks like Trump is going to win,” said Ford O’Connell, former adviser to John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “Rubio would have to clean up everything in South Florida, all 11.5 percent of the state’s voters there.… There’s only so much you can do, and Trump is literally running away with this.”
The most recent poll in Florida shows Rubio trailing Trump by 23 percentage points. While Rubio has made gains in the past few days, political scientists and strategists in the state remain skeptical that it will be enough to eke out a win.
Will Clinton Claim A Bigger Win In S.C., And Will Trump Move Farther From The Pack In Nevada?
Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s victories Saturday in Nevada and South Carolina raise two big questions for the next stops in the primary season.
Can Clinton build on her narrow Nevada victory and chalk up a bigger win next Saturday in South Carolina, which features a substantial African American population, and can Trump move even further away from the pack—including establishment favorite Marco Rubio – Tuesday in the Silver State.
The Republican candidates are now shifting their attention to Nevada, and the most recent polling shows that the race is not nearly as tight as the Clinton-Sanders battle.
Ford O’Connell, former adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the thing to watch in Nevada will be who wins second place after a near tie for the spot in South Carolina between Cruz and Rubio. While Rubio has lived in Nevada, Republicans in the state have so far not rallied around him.
Nevertheless, what Nevada ultimately reveals about who the Republican Party’s nominee is likely to be is uncertain. One key question is whether the Silver State will whittle down the cast of candidates to three.
“If it doesn’t consolidate before March 15, when all of a sudden the Republican primaries become winner take all, it’s going to be a disaster for the party moderates,” O’Connell said. “As long as the field stays wide, as in more than three candidates, Trump is in good shape.”
In New Hampshire You're Either For Trump Or Against Him
In New Hampshire, if you’re not a fan of Donald Trump, then you are really, really not a fan of Donald Trump.
For Republican-leaning residents of the Granite State, it’s all or nothing when it comes to their feelings about the GOP frontrunner.
While the real estate mogul is currently polling in the lead in New Hampshire after finishing second in Iowa, there are Republican residents who find his appeal, as well as his success there, offensive.
While Trump currently is leading in New Hampshire with 29 percent support, according to a University of New Hampshire poll conducted for CNN and WMUR, New Hampshirites notoriously wait until the last minute when making their final decision and independent voters often change parties the day of the primary. A WBUR poll released at the end of January found that one third of New Hampshire’s undeclared likely voters had yet to decide on a party.
“In New Hampshire it’s about message, touch and then mobilization to the ballot box. [Trump’s] decided to replace what we call the physical touch with celebrity. It could work for him because thus far nothing has gone according to standard,” said Ford O’Connell, former advisor to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 run. “Everything he’s done has just not been according to the traditional script, and it may or may not harm him.”
College Students Are A Key Focus For Candidates Hoping For A Narrow Victory In Iowa
For Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a key step in winning the Iowa primary is getting college kids out to caucus.
This year is the first time public colleges in Iowa will be in session during the caucuses in two presidential cycles, which means there’s a big, concentrated pool of students who are potential caucus goers, including some out-of-state students who qualify to register.
With Sanders hoping to pull off a narrow victory Monday in the Hawkeye State, getting these students out to caucus for him could be a make it or break it moment.
On the Republican side, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also has had a steady ground game trying to engage students and get them out to caucus.
According to Cliff Maloney, Paul’s national youth director, the campaign has 25 Students for Rand chapters throughout Iowa that are “executing a full-throttle student get out the vote operation to capitalize on all of the ground work we have done since April.” The campaign has a goal of turning out 10,000 students the night of the caucuses to support Paul.
“It’s really hard to get 10,000 students out there,” said Ford O’Connell, former John McCain adviser and veteran campaign strategist. “We are looking at maybe 133,000 people turning out to the caucus. But if you are asking kids 18-to-24 to sit through a long night to caucus, 10,000 is a lot; you aren’t asking for that from people in New Hampshire, who just pull a lever. It’s asking a lot of commitment and students might not have the patience.”
