Live results from Virginia here.
The key to watch in the Northern Virginia suburbs. As others are noting, it’s wealthier, more highly educated, less conservative than the rest of the Virginia. But another key point is that it ground zero of the Republican political establishment. No, it’s not everyone. But it’s a significant slice of the Republican electorate in NOVA. Rubio needs to overperform there.
At the risk of stating the obvious, winning Virginia would be huge for Marco Rubio. That is mainly a commentary on just how incredibly low expectations are for Rubio, and how much establishment Republicans are lowering the bar. But for all that, it’s still a very big deal.
I’m hearing Marco Rubio is really making a race of this in Virginia. And I strongly suspect that’s because of Northern Virginia which is on the R side basically 20% GOP electeds and 25% GOP lobbyists. In other words, it’s Rubes country. But if he can pull of a win there, that will give him something to avoid a total blow out, total humiliation.
Okay we’ve got polls closing in three states in 24 minutes. And it’ll just get bumpier after that. Live results links over to the right.
New CNN/ORC poll shows Hillary and Bernie both beating Trump and Rubio.
I looked at these numbers too quickly. Both beat Trump; Sanders beats Rubio and Rubio beats Clinton.
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I’ve said this a few times before. But it is really too bad for the Republican party (and the United States) that Marco Rubio is simply too weak a reed for the task his increasingly desperate and confounded party has set out for him. I’m not sure whether Rubio or someone else could have gotten traction if they’d started launching these pretty obvious attacks sooner or whether they’ll start to resonate over next couple weeks. (I think there’s a decent chance they will; I just suspect it will be too late.) But as I said over the weekend, the simple truth is that Donald Trump is just better at this than Marco Rubio. A lot better.
History is a funny thing. And generations seem always to look at each other across the divide of years with a mix of mutual ignorance, ‘splaining and efforts to justify their own cohorts’ priorities and impressions. But through the on-going debate over police violence and mass incarceration I’ve had the repeated experience of nodding in agreement with young activists and yet being surprised how quickly we forget the politics of the 1980s and 1990s. If this sounds like a middle-aged man lecturing the younger generation about not knowing how it was, well … at some level I obviously have to plead guilty. But just as youth always has the ability to look at the realities of the moment and not be blinded by the unattacked assumptions of the status quo, older folks do have some remaining ability to understand the dynamics of the past as eyewitnesses.
Trying to make sense of what’s happened to the GOP over the last 96 hours? Here’s my explanation.
The Lt Gov of Texas, a Cruz surrogate, is on CNN right now arguing that all the other Republicans need to drop out and let Cruz fight Trump one on one because Cruz’s supporters would overwhelmingly go to Trump if Cruz drops out. So if Cruz gets out, Trump will automatically become the nominee.
So Cruz is the GOP’s only hope in stopping Donald Trump, because his supporters are natural Trump supporters.