Trump and Clinton Win Big on Super Tuesday

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton took home huge victories on Super Tuesday, cementing their positions as frontrunners of their respective primaries.

Super Tuesday is always considered a crucial day in both the Republican and Democratic primary calendars. This campaign cycle, however, the twelve states that held their nominating contests on March 1st broke decisively for two candidates and may have effectively set each party’s frontrunner on inevitable paths toward their respective nominations.

Though twelve states cast their votes, there were only eleven for each party; Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia made their choices in both parties, while Colorado held their contest for Democrats and Alaska held theirs for Republicans. The day’s south-heavy lineup led to it being dubbed the March 1st “SEC primary”, a day that will now live in infamy for the candidates in both parties.

On the Republican side, Ted Cruz had been hailing March 1st as the most important day of his campaign from the earliest stages of the race. The Texas Senator was confident that he’d be able to win his home state and use his strong evangelical, constitutional and military appeal in the other states across the south. Widely considered the champion of principled conservatism, Cruz was expected to steamroll his way through the numerous states that resembled his home state of Texas in their electorate and key issues.

What he never saw coming was Donald Trump. Though the real-estate mogul has struggled at times to present his self-declared spirituality to the voters, including a now infamous moment in a speech at Liberty University where he referred to the Bible verse Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians”, Trump has run rampant with the evangelical voters that Cruz once considered his base. In previous cycles, the thought of a wealthy, New York businessman sweeping the south would have been laughed off by any prudent political operative, but that is exactly what Super Tuesday has delivered.

Among the seven southern states that cast their votes in the Republican primary on Tuesday, Trump triumphed in five of them; Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Arkansas. He won commandingly in the first three states but had to work a little harder to eke out wins over Rubio and Cruz in Virginia and Arkansas respectively. However, the billionaire businessman was just able to defeat Virginia’s strong Republican establishment population and Cruz’s near-home state advantage in Arkansas to ensure his dominance in the south. He also took Massachusetts and Vermont in big wins to continue his series of New England victories. He also managed to steal the headlines through a series of high-profile endorsements including Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, and, most importantly, ex-presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Though Ted Cruz’s southern firewall was effectively dismantled, he managed to scrap his way to three important wins. He thumped Trump in his home state of delegate-rich Texas and battled to more tightly contested wins in neighboring Oklahoma and distant Alaska. The triumphs gave Sen. Cruz a chance to continue to push the narrative that he is the only viable alternative to Donald Trump.

Marco Rubio had a very difficult night. The Florida senator failed to win in establishment-haven Virginia and only managed a single victory in the Minnesota caucuses, his first victory at all so far this primary season. Though the GOP establishment has firmly settled itself behind Marco Rubio as their preferred choice, his consistent ,  at the polls has continued to plague the senator’s campaign. Rubio came after Trump very aggressively in the weeks preceding Super Tuesday in a series of attacks, all to little avail in the end.

John Kasich and Ben Carson, truth be told, played solely the role of spoilers. Though Kasich was within three percentage points of Trump in Vermont, his 9% of more moderate voters in Virginia could have been enough to propel Rubio past Trump in the state. Carson helped Trump in Arkansas, where his 5% of mostly evangelical voters could have put Ted Cruz over the top into a victory. As a result of finishing fifth in almost every state, Carson suspended his campaign on Friday, though Kasich persists in his efforts to win the nomination.

Trump now has 329 delegates of the 1,237 needed to win the nomination, opening up a sizable gap between himself and Ted Cruz (231) and Marco Rubio (110). Some Republicans, including Mitt Romney in a speech to the University of Utah on Friday, have said that a brokered convention could be the only way to stop Trump’s rise in a manner that hasn’t been seen in decades.

The Democratic race was just as disparate on Super Tuesday. Hillary Clinton was always the favorite in the south due to her dominance among African-American voters that make up a large part of the electorate. However, Sen. Bernie Sanders hoped to channel his populist, barnstorming campaign into energetic victories in five states that he targeted most closely; Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and his home state of Vermont.

The democratic-socialist managed to pull out victories in four of those states; he fell short in Massachusetts by just one percent. However, he just pipped Clinton in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oklahoma and delivered a thoroughly commanding win in Vermont.

As a whole, though, Super Tuesday was clearly Hillary Clinton’s night. Alabama, Bill Clinton’s, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, delegate-heavy Texas and Virginia all supplanted her strong delegate lead. Though some states were close, the Clinton machine managed to generate wins by as much as sixty percent, blowing her progressive opponent out of the water through her huge black and Hispanic following.

The ex-Secretary of State’s delegate lead over Sen. Sanders puts Trump’s lead to shame. Though she leads by fewer than two hundred delegates through voting, her commanding advantage among superdelegates, Democratic Party insiders and lawmakers that cast their votes at the convention and who are not bound by their state’s results, her total count lies at 1,058 out of the 2,383 needed to win. Sanders sits at just 431 and would need to start to run the table in the coming contests if he is to have a chance at overwhelming Clinton’s massive superdelegate count.

As both frontrunners now look to hold onto their leads, the coming states could make or break their opposition. Perhaps most important of all is the state of Florida, a winner-take-all competition with a high delegate count in the Republican primary. Amid calls from some for Marco Rubio to drop out of the race, he will have to win his home state to keep credibility. However, he trails the bombastic Trump by twenty points in the the latest polls, and Florida could be the nail in Rubio’s coffin.

On the Democratic side, this upcoming Saturday could be Sen. Sanders’ chance to bounce back. Though Clinton will likely win big in Louisiana, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver has expressed confidence in his candidate’s ability to win in the other three “sweet spot” states for Sanders; Kansas, Nebraska and Maine, all caucus states with mostly white populations. Should he win those states, triumph in embattled Michigan, and go into March 15th swinging, this primary campaign might not be over. However, Clinton will look for a big delegate boost that day in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio, so all things still carefully rest in the balance. Sanders is also now out-raising the Clinton campaign through his online, small donor-based funding and has promised to stay in the race until the convention.

Regardless of what happens in either party as the calendar moves forward, Super Tuesday has seriously tilted both the Republican and Democratic primaries toward the frontrunners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Their seemingly insurmountable delegate leads continue to grow, but plenty of states are left in each primary and anything could yet happen.

Is the GOP Finally Falling Apart?

If you ask any Republican today who their favorite politician is, you’ll likely get the same answer from all of them. Over the summer, as the GOP presidential field began to take shape, many of the candidates were asked for their favorite living president, and, despite the “living” qualification, answered the same way. Unsurprisingly, Ronald Reagan lives on today as the hero of the right that made being conservative cool. With ugly infighting and right-wing disruption now characterizing the Republican Party in Washington, it seems now that the GOP may have reached its peak with Reagan, never to again ascend to those lofty heights.

During the wave elections in 2010 and 2012, the Tea Party insurgency helped lead the Republicans to a huge majority in the House and potentially ushered the rise of a new generation of conservative dominance in response to the Obama presidency. One of the biggest fundraisers that helped elect that wave was the hard-right Ohioan Rep. John Boehner, who was promptly elected Speaker of the House in January of 2011. Since then, the smooth sailing has turned utterly sour, and just a few days ago, Boehner announced he would be retiring from his post.

In fact, John Boehner is the third straight Republican Speaker to resign amid strong disapproval from his own caucus, following Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert. His Speakership has been characterized by constant fighting within his own party and a failure to seriously govern or pass meaningful legislation. Rebellions from the House Freedom Caucus, an organization of conservative hard-liners that have vocally fought House leadership on multiple issues

Speaker John Boehner is the third straight Republican speaker to resign his post under pressure from his own caucus, speaking volumes about the dysfunction of the GOP.

Most recently, the Freedom Caucus has pushed angrily to defund Planned Parenthood and have been willing to hold funding for the federal government hostage to accomplish that goal. Knowing that the Senate wouldn’t be able to pass such a bill and that President Obama would veto any such legislation, Boehner has had to fight down his revolting members yet again and is finally fed up with the process. His sudden resignation came as a shock to many, but before he departs on October 30th, he plans to pass a clean funding bill that would keep Planned Parenthood open. The competition for the opening spots in Republican leadership have continued to wreak turmoil on the already bruised House Republicans, and the next Speaker will likely continue to struggle to control the roiling chamber.

Things don’t look bright in the Senate, either. The GOP finally captured a majority in the chamber in the 2014 midterm elections but has struggled to really accomplish anything. In fact, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has spent most of his time fighting down revolts from his Tea Party members, much like Boehner in the House. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been a particular pain for McConnell. After famously shutting down the government in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act, Cruz continued his tirades this summer, calling McConnell a “liar” on the Senate floor and saying the Kentuckian is overly compliant and willing to compromise with Democrats.

The firebrand evangelical, who is currently running for president, seems set to try to shut down the government yet again over Planned Parenthood. Though McConnell and Senate leadership has managed to isolate Cruz and so far ensure that the government will continue running, the constant infighting has led to a dramatically reduced acceptance of the GOP among the American public.

After President Obama’s reelection in 2012, the Republican National Committee released the Growth and Opportunity Project, a 97-page autopsy report of the party’s loss in the election. Surprisingly bluntly, the report attacked the GOP’s ideological rigidity, its preference for the rich over workers, its alienation of minorities, its reactionary social ideas, and its institutionally repressive policies. The idea at the time was that, in order to save the Republican Party, the GOP would have to become more welcoming to centrists and voters of all demographics.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has tried desperately to make the Republican Party more accessible for minorities and Americans of all types but has seen his efforts undone by the likes of Donald Trump.

Instead, much to the chagrin in RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, the party has done the opposite. It has become the party whose ideological “purity” has shut down the government on multiple occasions and threatens to do so again, the party whose rank and file kick out any leadership that doesn’t go along with their brinkmanship, and the party whose supremely “constitutional” candidates like Ted Cruz rail against basic principles of the Constitution, such as life-serving Supreme Court justices.

Most embarrassing of all for Mr. Priebus has been the rise of Donald Trump. The billionaire real-estate mogul has risen to the top of the polls in the race for the Republican nomination, mainly for his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric aimed mainly at Mexicans that he claimed were “drug-addicts” and “rapists” in his announcement speech. This diatribe against minorities will hardly extend the membership of the party to Hispanics, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., and it seems the number of Americans that see the GOP as a viable option are slowly slimming.

For now, the Republican Party maintains a strong majority in the House and a slim one in the Senate, but both of those could be on the downturn. With Republican infighting plaguing Boehner’s speakership and the Democrats facing a very favorable Senate reelection map in 2016, the GOP looks as though it could take some serious hits in 2016. It remains to be seen, however, if the Republicans can open up their party and ideologically adjust to modern America or if the GOP will come crashing down around itself in a tsunami of hard-line, unfettered conservatism and fighting.

The Rise of the Anti-Establishment

Despite never having held public office, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump are dominating the polls in the race to capture the Republican nomination.

The 2016 presidential election was always going to be a thrilling one. The Republican primary has been flooded with no less than seventeen candidates, while the Democrats on the opposite side of the isle watch a select few try to battle their way past the inevitability of Hillary Clinton. No matter which party you look at, however, one trend in this campaign cycle is becoming more and more clear; the American people are sick and tired of establishment politics.

In January, it seemed almost certain that Hillary Clinton would face off against establishment, super-funded Jeb Bush or Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the general election. Bush had quietly let slip that his Super PAC would be able to raise over $100 million before he even decided to officially run, and Walker had been setting first-in-the-nation Iowa ablaze with his speeches and connections to the Midwestern state.

Fast-forward to September. The latest CNN poll shows the braggadocios Donald Trump leading the Republican field with 24% while ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina and evangelical neurosurgeon Ben Carson come in 2nd and 3rd with 15% and 14% respectively. Amazingly, none of the three leaders in the GOP have ever held any political office. Jeb Bush has fallen to just 9%, and Scott Walker, registering less than 1%, has astoundingly dropped out of the race altogether after running out of hard cash to fund his campaign.

At first, many people had viewed Walker as an “outsider” to the sluggish, despised machine that Washington is often painted as today. With the emergence of the unimaginably aggressive Trump, the stirring performance of Fiorina, and the calm, friendly demeanor of Carson, however, being an outsider took on a whole new definition for a Republican base that has seen its party finally win a majority on Capitol Hill and do next to nothing substantive with it. Walker has paid the price, and the man who was once expected to be a heavy favorite to win the nomination has dropped out five months before the first ballot will be cast.

The Democratic side is hardly different. Hillary Clinton represents every vestige of establishment politics; hailing from a politically powerful family, loved by donors and extensively funded, and falling in line with almost every standard Democratic position. Though her lead remains intact nationally, an insurgency from the left in the shape of a self-described socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) has taken the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire by storm and could spill into the rest of the country.

Bernie Sanders has held the largest rallies in the presidential race and continues to win over support in droves as voters grow more and more wary of the establishment-blessed Clinton.

Though Sanders has been in politics for almost forty years as the Mayor of Burlington and as a Representative and now Senator of Vermont, the progressive firebrand is about as far as it gets from the usual career politician. An outspoken critic of big money in politics and rampant income inequality, Sanders’ unorthodox message has caught fire and lent serious thought to the idea that the era of establishment candidates like Clinton is over.

This rise of the anti-establishment has come upon the American political system without warning or precedent. The Donald captured headlines out of nowhere with his announcement speech that decried Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug addicts, and the real estate mogul has dominated headlines ever since for his bravado, name-calling and demagoguery. Along with him came Ben Carson, a soft-spoken neurosurgeon that offered the same lack of political experience that the voters so dearly craved without the over-assertiveness of Trump.

Carly Fiorina especially has been one of the most surprising stories. Having presided over one of the worst periods in Hewlett-Packard’s history that included an over 50% drop in profits and over 30,000 layoffs, Fiorina had been stuck in the low single-digits in polls for months after entering the race. An impressive undercard debate performance and some intense lobbying of CNN led to the ex-CEO being placed on the main debate on the 17th where yet again Fiorina impressed. Those two performances later, Fiorina had jumped 11% in the polls and has become a serious contender for the nomination.

In the GOP especially, the abrupt come-up of these three individuals illustrates the type of frustration that the Republican base is feeling. Two regulars of the political stage in Walker and ex-Texas governor Rick Perry have already dropped out due to lack of support and funds, but one-time prohibitive favorite Jeb Bush has been particularly underwhelming, suffering multiple gaffes on Iraq and women’s health as well as a forgettable first debate. Only in the CNN debate has the ex-Florida governor held his ground at all, and the funds-rich candidate remains inexplicably polls-poor at just 9% nationally.

The Republican primary is especially interesting due to the lack of policy specifics driving each insurgent campaign. Trump’s main points have mainly been anti-immigrant and pro-wall on the Mexican border. Carson has admitted to being a little out of his depth on policy, especially on the global stage, while Carly Fiorina has only the powerful rhetoric of the debates that has propelled her forth, not any political details. Conservatives aren’t even overly concerned with the issues anymore, they simply want to turn to a candidate they think isn’t lying through their teeth and will actually shake up D.C.

On the left, Bernie Sanders has led a very different type of anti-establishment revolution. The Vermonter has laid out numerous detailed plans to fight income inequality, create more jobs, reverse climate change, fix campaign finance, and more. The senator has packed tens of thousands into venues to see him speak and has managed to hold his own in the fundraising war despite not starting a Super PAC. As the party’s pick in Clinton continues to struggle with handling her email controversy, Sanders has ridden the wave of liberalism in the Democratic Party into the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire despite not actually identifying as a true Democrat.

While it may be too early to definitively say that establishment politics are done for, it’s certainly not out of the question to suggest it. Never before has a presidential cycle been so dominated by candidates that have won the love of the people without winning anything close to the support of their party mechanisms, and the ensuing developments of having such candidates run has utterly shaken up the race for the White House. It seems America is fed up with the same-old in Washington and that the anti-establishment is well and truly on the rise.

The Ingenious Lunacy of Donald Trump

When billionaire businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump announced he was running for the Republican nomination for president on June 16th, most people rolled their eyes, chuckled and prepared to watch this ill-conceived PR stunt unfold before their eager eyes. What actually happened has surprised just about every political observer in the country; six weeks into his campaign, Trump has risen to the top of the Republican field.

The Donald, as he has become known, and his campaign have been chock-full of controversy from the very start. It began with his announcement speech, in which he accused Mexican immigrants of being rapists and drug dealers (though “some, [he] assumes, are good people”). Since then, he has attacked both Republican and Democratic candidates with an unearthly zeal. He accused Jeb Bush of liking “Mexican illegals because of his wife”, said Sen. John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured, said Rick Perry, even with glasses, was dumb, and gave out presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham’s personal phone number at a campaign event and called him a “lightweight”, a “stiff”, and an “idiot”. Trump has even threatened the GOP by floating the possibility of running as a third party candidate.

Donald Trump addresses the crowd at his announcement speech in June.

At first, Trump’s maddening antics seemed to be backfiring. Univision, the largest Spanish language network in America, cut ties with the billionaire after his comments about Mexican immigrants. This was followed shortly by NBC cutting The Apprentice and ending their affiliation with Trump for the same reason. He became the target of bipartisan criticism for his crass comments, and it seemed things were falling apart just as they’d begun.

However, hidden in the insanity of the comments Trump was making, there were shreds of incredible political acumen. Though most people were appalled by his comments, everyone was talking about him and the things he was saying; you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about the latest insult The Donald had dished out. Gone were the headlines on Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, the reports on policy positions and political maneuvering; the news cycle had become Donald Trump coverage, 24/7.

Between the media attention and the attraction of supporting a candidate that’s supposedly not afraid to speak his mind, GOP primary voters have flocked to Trump and put him in front of the pack in the national polls. RealClearPolitics national polling averages have the erratic businessman garnering 18.2% of the vote, breaking away from heavy favorites Jeb Bush (13.7%) and Scott Walker (11.7%). The latest NBC/Marist poll has even put him far in front in the first-in-the-nation primary state, New Hampshire, with 21% of the vote.

Even though he’s doubtlessly completely alienated quite a few voters across America, The Donald’s startling success in the polls could turn him into a real heavyweight in the GOP primary if he plays his cards right. The first Republican debate is just five days away, and Trump could conceivably start to pull even further away with a commanding performance. Though his incendiary comments initially seemed like political suicide, Trump has quite cleverly used those comments to grab a monopoly of the media’s time and the capture the undivided attention of the nation.

Some might label Donald Trump a bully or a lunatic, but behind his blustering insults and mildly horrifying comb-over lies a pretty ingenious political plan. So far, that plan is working wonders.