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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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!