Saturday was a good day for the Democratic establishment and a very bad one for the Republican establishment.
On the Democratic side, Hillary
Clinton pulled off a victory over Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucus
with a margin of more than 5 percent. While the Silver State was once
thought to be solid Clinton territory, Sanders had made serious gains
there, and his charge—combined with a murky polling picture—suggested the state was very close. If Sanders won, he’d prove he could compete in minority-heavy states,
and he’d have momentum headed into the South, the area that was
supposed to be Clinton’s “firewall.” Now she goes to South Carolina’s
February 27 primary with a lift, and Democratic elders are breathing a
sigh of relief. This is not the end of the Sanders campaign: The Vermont
senator has an enthusiastic base, strong fundraising, and a message
he’s passionate about. But Nevada was his best chance to derail the
Clinton campaign and take over the Democratic race. The next string of
states will be tough going for him, and it may be too late after that.
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The Republican establishment didn’t have such a good night. In the South Carolina primaries, Donald Trump romped to a huge win, taking a third of the vote. As voting approached in the Palmetto State, GOP insiders covered their eyes and hoped some deus ex machina
would take Trump out. None did. The improbable frontrunner seems to
have recovered from his poor showing in Iowa with two straight
victories. The picture going forward is murky—Nevada polling for the
Republicans is as unclear as for the Democrats, and many of the states
holding “Super Tuesday” primaries on March 1 haven’t been polled in some
time—but if Trump can decisively win South Carolina and New Hampshire,
there’s no reason to believe he can’t run very well across the country.
There were, however, three small bright spots for the GOP establishment Saturday. The first was Marco Rubio’s distant second-place finish.
To hear some of his backers tell it, it’s practically like he won the
primary. But the Florida senator did come in ahead of Ted Cruz, and he’s
closer to consolidating establishment support as the anti-Trump
candidate.
That brings us to the second
bright spot: Cruz’s third-place finish. Republican machers fear Trump,
but they hate Cruz, and on Saturday, Cruz didn’t have a great night.
South Carolina, with its large evangelical population should have been
fertile ground for Cruz, but exit polls suggest he didn’t even win that
demographic. Cruz is still well-funded and has zealous backers, but if
he can’t do better in South Carolina it’s hard to make the case that he
win elsewhere.
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The third bright spot is the departure of Jeb Bush, who suspended his campaign Saturday night. It’s bittersweet for the GOP establishment—the Bush family practically is the
establishment—but Bush was clearly a dead man campaigning. His exit
clears some space among the party favorites and should give Rubio a
boost.
The question is what will become
of John Kasich and Ben Carson, who finished fifth and sixth on Saturday.
Kasich rolled into South Carolina with energy from his second-place New
Hampshire finish, but he was already way behind in the state, and he
never made up that lost ground. He’s hoping to hold on a little longer
and get to more favorable territory down the road, but he’ll face
increasing pressure to get in line behind Rubio and quit hurting the
party’s—and the establishment’s—chance to stop Trump. Carson remains an
enigma. After his brief moment as a national frontrunner, he’s now in
the basement, and there’s no viable path for him to get out. But then
again, Carson was never going to be president anyway, was he?
Who’s in, who’s out, and who’s on the bubble? To
help keep track, this cheat sheet on the state of the presidential
field will be periodically updated throughout the campaign season.
Here’s how things look right now.