Tapper just now to Rubio: “Senator, you keep saying that and he keeps winning states and you’re talking about Virginia and that’s another state that Donald Trump won. I’m wondering if there’s a certain amount of denial that you’re in about this race.”
It looks like Rubio might be able to come in first place in the Minnesota caucus.
On a more serious note, Sanders is looking good in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses. (Full results in the links to the right.)
This is starting to look like about the worst possible night Marco Rubio could have had. Making it a race in Virginia is definitely something. But Donald Trump has had a night of crushing victories. Just as important, Cruz won his home state of Texas convincingly and Oklahoma. And there are still a few states out. Rubio still might win in Minnesota. But it looks like Cruz has two or possibly three wins and Rubio has none.
His line tonight: “We are seeing in state after state, his number’s coming down, our number’s going up.”
Good luck with that, dude.
I don’t think establishment Republicans have it in them to consolidate around Ted Cruz. He’s just too big a jerk, probably unelectable nationwide. And they hate him. There’s basically zero chance he wins the nomination. But it’s going to be pretty hard for anyone to argue that Cruz has to get out for Rubio after tonight’s results.
Listening to Clinton’s speech, I’m struck by one of most unexpected, surreal parts of this campaign: Trump has given Hillary Clinton the turnkey campaign message she simply never had until right now. It’s basically just the Trump message turned upside. And with Trump’s message so rancid and cartoonish, it’s a message that’s fairly hard to quibble with.
And there we have it. Fox calls Virginia for Trump. AP still not calling yet. But that seems to be a wrap for Rubes.
(Fox called it on air. CNN called it on Twitter, but not on air. Overactive social media meister? They’re hard to control!!)
Update: Aaaaand CNN took the call down from Twitter. Someone’s now having a very difficult conversation.
We’ve got an emerging meme that Kasich of all people is hurting Rubio in Northern Virginia and may keep Rubio from winning the state. In a certain narrow, numerical sense, this may be true. Kasich is pulling about 8 percent statewide. But in Northern Virginia’s key Fairfax County, Kasich is almost at 20%. And yeah, that’s very strong territory for Rubio. But c’mon, if Cruz wasn’t in Trump would be doing better too. Basically the Rubio dead-enders are going with, if the election had different people, Rubes would be winning!
I’m seeing a lot of Republicans pointing to the VA results and saying that whoever gets the victory, a majority of Virginia delegates (and other similar states) will be ‘available’ for an anti-Trump unity candidate at the GOP convention in Cleveland in July.
Obviously this all presumes that Trump ends up with a plurality of delegates, not a majority. That could happen of course. But I think it’s worth noting that if Donald Trump is the clear plurality winner of delegates and the primary popular vote and someone who got much less (or didn’t run at all) comes out of the convention as nominee, I think that’s basically the end of the election. I don’t say anybody can’t win – not Trump, not Cruz, not Sanders, not Clinton. You just don’t know. But I think anyone who comes out of that kind of process as nominee is pretty close to ‘can’t win.’ There’s just too much electoral blood on the floor, too many people who feel like they were robbed, too much inherent and lasting controversy etc. Not ‘can’t’. But pretty close to ‘can’t’.
All networks immediately call Mass, Tennessee and Alabama for Trump; Alabama and Tennessee for Hillary. But too close to call races for the Dems in Oklahoma and Massachusetts, but with Sanders leading.
On Virginia, Trump is ahead with a lot of the vote in. But a lot of votes are still to come in Northern Virginia, basically suburban DC. Rubio could still win Virginia.
The real action on election nights, if you’re obsessive enough that you can’t just grab a beer and chill while the votes come in, is down at the county level. If you know the electoral make up by county and the results in recent elections, you can get a pretty good sense of what’s going on, even if the topline results are still ambiguous. You see who’s underperforming or overperforming in particular areas. One of the top guys I know to follow for this kind of analysis on Twitter is Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. If you want these kinds of breakdowns in real time, here’s his feed.
Wasserman’s take as of just after 7:30 seems to be that Trump probably wins Virginia but Rubio is making a real race of it, performing well in key areas. It’s likely much closer than the current ten point spread would suggest. Because the votes in so far are from western part of the state. Rubes’ votes are going to come from NOVA, as we discussed here.