2016 elections - because it's never too early

[jimmy olsen]

 

CNN reporting a jaw-dropping stat from their entrance poll, about the Latino vote in Nevada.

Here's their breakdown of that:

Trump: 44 percent

Rubio: 29 percent

Cruz: 18 percent

Kasich: 4 percent

Now, a note of caution: CNN themselves admit that there is a pretty jaw-dropping ten percent margin of error on this number.

[Jaron]

 

[Monoriu]

I don't understand the idea of a wall in the US/Mexico border.  We are not talking about West Berlin.  The US/Mexico border is very long.  Building it is going to be really expensive, and I don't see how the Mexican government will agree to pay for it.  And it isn't just a matter of building it.  You have to man it, and maintain it.  And even then, the wall will not keep out everybody.  People will find ways.  They can go around the wall, dig underneath it, blow a hole in it, climb over it, or simply bribe their way through.  There was a wall between Hong Kong and Mainland China (there still is), and there was a time when hundreds of thousands of people still got through.  When you are escaping the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, a mere wall won't stop you.  It just made the process more difficult, but if people are determined to go through, they will find a way.

You are missing the two key elements of Trump's plan:

#1: it will be a really good wall. He emphasizes this point a lot. Such a good wall won't be so easy to bypass.

#2: Trump is a really good negotiator. He wrote the book on negotiation. He will be able to convince Mexico to pay for the wall.

He can say whatever he wants.  The real surprise is why people buy those

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, Tim has kind of hit the way I've been thinking the last day or so too. I'd long assumed if everyone consolidated into a not-Trump, they'd be able to beat him in the WTAs and maybe win, I still thought if Trump won most of the Super Tuesday states it'd be very hard to keep him from at least winning a plurality.

However, one big thing I've read since then that has me thinking the path for not-Trump is even narrower is the polling on voter's second preferences. While Trump wasn't the #2 preference for any of the establishment lane candidate's voters, he is the #2 preference for Cruz voters, and he's essentially tied with Cruz as the next preference for Carson's voters. The last I saw he was the second preference for around 10% of Bush's supporters. Now, there aren't many of those supporters, but right now Rubio is effectively 15 pts down from Trump, and Trump is only about 15 from hitting an outright majority of support. Plus, with the delegate allocation rules I think if Trump is sitting at 45% in a three way race he wins damn near all the delegates, and even at 40 I think he wins an easy majority.

Cruz has been wilting of late, and Trump has robbed him of his chances at victories by likely beating him throughout the conservative Southern states that vote on Super Tuesday, other than Texas. That will hurt his momentum and of course Trump walking away with say, 65% of delegates outstanding on Super Tuesday puts him in a commanding position. Since Trump is so highly regarded as a second choice by Cruz supporters, if Cruz decides to hang it up as the campaign moves to the upper midwest and the rest of the country where his evangelical message won't get much traction, the likely scenario is far too many of his supporters go to Trump for Rubio to catch up. Plus, since Trump is so far ahead of Rubio he needs a lot fewer of Ted's supporters than Rubio does.

The only 1v1 where I think Trump may not hit 50% national support would be vs Cruz, for the simple reason that Cruz is very popular as a second preference for Rubio voters, and Trump is very unpopular (only 9% vs 28% for Cruz) assuming all other candidates are out I could see Trump v Cruz being very close. But Cruz is also the least likely to take advantage of that, since this is still a state by state. And there's no way it's Trump v Cruz ever, but if it were to happen it'd be well after mid-March, by which time all the states Cruz had a shot of doing well in will have already held their elections. So while former Rubio supporters combined with everyone else might have him polling 55% in places like Tennessee and South Carolina, it won't matter because they will have already voted. Cruz's support is so low in many of the states after that, that even in a national 1 v 1 where he has a slight edge against Trump, it's likely he'd trail in many of the states left on the calendar at that point.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The border wall idea is obviously stupid, but keep in mind he's been essentially vague about it. We've built almost 700 miles of border fence, not to the standards we intended, and thus some of it is not very effective, but that's a rough 1/3rd of the length necessary. The current fence cost about $2.5bn, so finishing would probably cost about $5bn if you did it to the standard of the old fencing, since that project was done awhile ago now, during the George W. Bush administration, let's say that cost would be more like $6bn today. But let's also remember that some of the areas that are unfenced are the most geographically difficult to fence, that puts it more around say, $8bn to finish.

Now, the Bush era wall was supposed to be a double fence with features that made it more difficult to traverse. Sections of it were built to that standard, and sections of it were not. So let's say we don't want to just extend to the quality we did before, but actually complete the whole double-fence, fully decked out border fencing originally started in the Bush Administration. Low end that's probably $15bn. While that's a lot, we spent an average of that like every month during ground combat operations in Iraq, so it's stupid expensive but only compared to some things, things that aren't say, the U.S. Defense Budget.

Of course the real negative of spending that $15bn is that without an enormously expensive and massive increase in the Border Patrol's size and its budget, most of that fence will be lightly patrolled, and a lightly patrolled fence will always be breached. Plus there are lots of other easy ways to get into the country. Tourist visa and then just not leaving being one of the most popular ones.

[Martinus]

From the Trump's victory speech:

"We won the evangelicals," he said. "We won with young. With won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated."

[Martinus]

This is the best possible result for Trump, with both Cruz and Rubio tying for the second place (and getting in total about what Trump is getting on his own). 

[jimmy olsen]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

[Phillip V]

Mega-donors have been refusing to give money to attack Trump.  Once Trump sweeps Super Tuesday, the establishment will embrace him.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-megadonors-219690

[Jacob]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

Your failed posts have been showing up here for years.

[Martinus]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

Your failed posts have been showing up here for years.

[Martinus]

Mega-donors have been refusing to give money to attack Trump.  Once Trump sweeps Super Tuesday, the establishment will embrace him.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-megadonors-219690

The donors cite the lack of success of the few super PAC attacks that have already targeted Trump as evidence that such attacks have not ― and cannot ― halt his momentum. And they worry that, if they fund higher-profile attacks, they could come under attack from Trump, who this week fired a warning shot at one of the few major donors to the anti-Trump efforts, Marlene Ricketts, tweeting that her family "better be careful, they have a lot to hide!"

I can't wait for Emperor Trump to start drafting his proscription lists. 

[jimmy olsen]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

Your failed posts have been showing up here for years.

Hardy har har, that's not what I meant and you know it.

[Jacob]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

Your failed posts have been showing up here for years.

Hardy har har, that's not what I meant and you know it.

[Jaron]

What the fucking hell!? Another of my failed posts from hours ago just popped up.

I deleted it, but that's just fucking weird!

Your failed posts have been showing up here for years.

Hardy har har, that's not what I meant and you know it.