February 20, 2016 by David K. Sutton
Trump Has Broken All The Rules Of Politics
Jon Ralston said tonight on MSNBC that “Trump has broken all the rules of politics.” Not only that, but Donald Trump has broken the Republican Party. Or maybe more specifically, Trump has confirmed the acerbic, antagonistic, caustic and vindictive conservative voter is in large abundance. Yes, we knew they existed, we just didn’t know how often they occurred in the wild. Trump owned almost every county in the South Carolina primary. And yes, primary voter turnout is typically lower than the general election, but one thing is clear, Trump has enough support within the GOP base to take this the distance. The only question now, does Trump have a ceiling?
The establishment candidate, Jeb Bush, announced he was suspending his campaign after a humiliating performance in the South Carolina primary. As the GOP field continues to shrink, the greater the test for Donald Trump. It’s pretty safe to say Jeb’s supporters are unlikely to support Trump, so his 8% is likely to split between the remaining non-Trump candidates. Who will be the next candidate to drop out? My money is on Ben Carson. Where does his 7% go? Trump? I’m not so sure. And how about Kasich and his 8%? And what about his staying power? I’m no Kasich fan, but if I had to choose a candidate to become the next president out of the pool of remaining GOP candidates (luckily I don’t have to do this for real), it would be Kasich.
So, between Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Ben Carson, you have a total of 23 percentage points (going by the South Carolina primary results with 99% in). Unfortunately, it seems inevitable that this race will eventually come down to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. When that happens, where will those 23 points end up? Will Trump still hold a commanding lead, or will he have found his ceiling? I believe a majority of the Bush-Kasich-Carson supporters will end up splitting between Cruz and Rubio, with maybe a handful heading Trump’s way. If that happens, it’s entirely possible you see Trump, Rubio and Cruz at around 33% each. Yeah, things are just getting interesting.
