Drowning in the Rubiocon
Thanks for Max Segal for help coming up with the title of today's post as well as this tombstone.
Last night was a big deal. On the off chance that you haven’t heard, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept the field during what was referred to as “Super Tuesday 2”. On the Republican side, Trump won in Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and, most consequentially, Florida. John Kasich won his home state of Ohio while Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio failed to win any primaries. As a result of not winning Florida, (as well as general underperformance) Marco Rubio dropped out of the race last night – see his speech below.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won Florida, Illinois (by one delegate), North Carolina, and Ohio while Bernie Sanders won Missouri (by one delegate). It should be noted that “winning” the popular vote doesn’t mean much other than bragging points for a candidate. For example, Clinton’s win in North Carolina gave her 59 delegates and 45 delegates to Bernie. This is the same in the case of the Republicans because some states have proportional vote primaries and some have winner-take-all primaries. It seems silly to me, but that’s neither here nor there – for now, it exists. It might be useful to take a look at the delegate count:
Republican Party (1,237 needed for nomination, 1,079 still available):
Trump – 661
Cruz – 406
Kasich – 142
Democratic Party (2,383 needed for nomination, 2,322 still available):
Clinton – 1,599
Sanders – 844
So as you can see, the difference between Trump and Cruz is not all that large even though Trump has “won” a large number of state primaries. As for Clinton and Sanders, the difference is pretty significant but the Sanders campaign claims that it can still pull through a win for the nomination. I’m skeptical but still don’t feel comfortable enough to claim a definite nomination for my girl HRC.
The loss of Marco Rubio for the nomination is a huge blow to the more moderate/less racist side of the Republican Party. If you had asked me six months ago, I would have told you that Marco Rubio would be their nominee come November. It’s a shock to many and a problem that the party need to tackle immediately if they have any chance of dumping Trump. Along with Kasich, Rubio has long been seen as a better alternative than both Trump and Cruz for the GOP establishment. I foresee lots of establishment Republican veterans endorsing John Kasich as the new poster child of the true Republican Party in the coming days.
With 236 days until the election,
Phoebe Warren
