Biggest Winner — Marco Rubio.
Now that he will likely be the ‘establishment’ favorite, his personal finances and relationship with ‘people of questionable character’ will become highlighted in the media. Let’s see if he can withstand the scrutiny. Given how flustered he seems to get under pressure (i.e., grabbing water in response to State of the Union, speaking very fast at debates), I just don’t think he can stand up against the relentless attacks that will come from Cruz & Trump.
Some democrats believe Rubio makes the best general election candidate against democrats, personally, I don’t see it. He will look ‘wet behind the ears’ standing toe-to-toe against Trump & Cruz as the field winnows. Then again, Rand Paul initially, and more recently John Kasich were the republicans I most feared in a general election.
Rubio is the biggest winner because the republican establishment voters will start to coalesce….but his membership in Gang of 8 is his political albatross….and expect Donald Trump to say, “Anchor Baby,” before New Hampshire primary.
Biggest Loser — Ann Selzer
The Bernie/Hillary result were within polling margin of error, not a problem with these results. But Rubio result exceeded Selzer polling and Cruz’ ascendence was also outside polling margin of error. We’re likely to learn about what the pollsters missed in the days between now and NH primary.
My ‘predictions’ in another Diary were based on these polls….with Cruz faltering and Rubio rising.
Republican Primary
Conventional wisdom for some will be that Ted Cruz was the biggest winner since he actually won, but Iowa should have always been his to lose. Conventional wisdom will be that Trump is biggest loser, but he had no ground game and has spent virtually no money. And if caucusing is a polite relic, Trump was anything but polite by skipping the final debate (amongst his other antics and verbal jabs). Unlike Trump, Cruz had a ground game to enhance caucus results. The question remains — what did the pollsters miss?
Ben Carson was the Evangelical standard bearer until just a few weeks ago, and Huckabee & Santorum won in Iowa in previous presidential cycles. Cruz should have always been the beneficiary once Carson started to decline. The ‘silent majority’ in Iowa spoke up — Trump is not one of them, despite the endorsements from a few evangelical power brokers.
Cruz has shown some leadership qualities at the Debates, although, he did get ‘schlonged’ without Donald on stage last week. With fewer republicans likely to be on stage in the coming weeks — let’s see how the Canadian-born, with a Wall Street wife, Cruz reacts after coming under more scrutiny. Cruz will have to outmaneuver both the republican establishment (Fox/Rubio) and the Trump Nativists to win the nomination. With Trump in the race splitting the antiestablishment vote, the path to the nomination for Cruz is most difficult.
If Trump wins New Hampshire, as current polling indicates, then I am still of the belief that a ‘brokered convention’ is in store for republicans since neither Trump, nor Cruz, nor Rubio will have a majority of delegates going into the convention. This comes into focus no sooner than the day after Super Tuesday.
Democrat Primary
Polling was within margin of error with the idea many pollsters called a ‘tie’ prior to the outcome.
For the record, I am in Camp Hillary.
Bernie can certainly claim victory since he stood up to the dragon and likely defied conventional wisdom. But he will also have to withstand heightened scrutiny too and some of that starts with tonight’s results. For instance, was Bernie able to register more voters and first-time caucus goers as his ardent supporters had claimed? Similarly, Bernie himself said that high voter turnout, which seems to have occurred, gave him an advantage — then why did he not win tonight? This is not a knock against Bernie, it’s just likely to be part of dialogue in the coming days. He’ll also have to withstand the increased scrutiny of his call for a political revolution versus the pragmatic incrementalism of Hillary in what is a legitimate debate within the democratic party.
In part, what helps Hillary the most is also her political albatross — her near perfect record of endorsements from the democratic establishment. Bernie’s support comes from the folks more likely to identify as ‘the democratic-wing of the democratic party’ — antiestablishment democrats.
On the one hand, if we believe the pollsters, Bernie has a more difficult task after Iowa & New Hampshire (with fewer self-described democratic socialists and more racially diverse communities). But many of us have previously suggested that if Bernie stays close in Iowa (as has happened) and wins New Hampshire (as he should), the the polling can change quickly. Included in this narrative is the autopsy from tonight and whether the rhetoric of new voters from Camp Bernie meets reality.
Democrats remain a house-divided and tonights result is mere punctuation to this fact. Since Hillary participated in creating the e-mail mess, she has to live with the questionable timing of the revelations from last week (that showed nothing the public doesn’t already know) and the impact this may have had on results in Iowa. I remain inclined to believe the (art of) polling that shows Hillary with a more clear path the nomination, but these statistics can change very quickly now that Bernie has posted credible results.
Wildcard
The wildcard after tonight is that Michael Bloomberg, who is apparently not a fan of democratic socialism, may enter the race to damage Bernie. I don’t know, this would just seem to fracture the results even more.
Finally
What an exciting time to be a political junkie. I remain proud to be a democratic.
