Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: A wonkfest of disagreement on economics
Nate Cohn on the signs and portents in today’s South Carolina demolition derby:
The Ted Cruz campaign has made it very clear how it believes its candidate can win the nomination: by unifying the party’s ideologically consistent and self-described “very conservative” base with the somewhat more populist, evangelical voters who make up the party’s rank and file in the South.
Together, these voters represent something near a majority of the Republican electorate. But apart, you get losing candidates like Mike Huckabee or Newt Gingrich.
If the polls in South Carolina are right, then Mr. Cruz isn’t even Mr. Huckabee or Mr. Gingrich.
If Trump loses, however, and/or Cruz or Rubio pull an upset, everything is scrambled. The polls do seem to be tightening. My best guess (and it’s just that, a guess) is that Trump wins, but underperforms.
Meanwhile today is NV, a must win/embarrassing loss for Bernie/Hillary or a “phew”/”oh, crap now what?” moment for Hillary/Bernie. Stay tuned. No one knows how it will turn out (even if the smart money is on Hillary).
There have only been two public surveys in Nevada this week, and pollsters warn that the caucuses – a system only recently implemented in the state and typically attended by very few Nevadans – are nearly impossible to predict. That's frightening for those wondering if Clinton can sustain her Nevada firewall or whether Sanders’ momentum can bring a surge of young voters to the caucuses.
“If Bernie wins, the hype machine is going to take off in a really, really serious way,” said Ed Kilgore, a Democratic analyst and political columnist for New York magazine.
“If Clinton wins,” Kilgore added, “we’re back to the situation where she’s very likely to win South Carolina and most of the states that vote on March 1 – in no small part because of her strength among African Americans, which has slipped a small bit but is still pretty impressive.”