IN LAST CHANCE DEBATE , RUBIO AND CRUZ SCORE AGAINST TRUMP.

NY TIMES

Senator Marco Rubio, alarmed by Donald J. Trump’s ascendancy and worried that his presidential chances were slipping away, unleashed a barrage of attacks on the real estate mogul’s business ethics, hiring practices and financial achievements in Thursday’s debate, forcefully delivering the onslaught that Republican leaders had desperately awaited.

In a series of acid exchanges, a newly pugnacious Mr. Rubio, long mocked for a robotic and restrained style, interrupted Mr. Trump, quizzed him, impersonated him, shouted over him and left him looking unsettled. It was an unfamiliar reversal of roles for the front-runner, who found himself so frequently the target of assaults from Mr. Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz that he complained they must have been a ploy for better television ratings.

From the opening moments of the debate, Mr. Rubio pounced. Deploying his own up-by-the-bootstraps biography, the Florida senator assailed Mr. Trump for hiring hundreds of foreign workers at his tony resort in Florida and passing over Americans who had applied for the same jobs.

Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. CreditRyan Stone for The New York Times

The acerbic and urgent tenor of the exchanges reflected the panicked state of a Republican field determined to halt Mr. Trump, whose crudely freewheeling style, abundant self-assuredness and durable popularity have produced three consecutive early-state victories that threaten to put the nomination out of reach for his two biggest rivals, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz.

The two-hour rumpus frequently devolved into unmediated bouts of shouting, name-calling and pleas to the moderators for chances to respond to the latest insult....But amid the relentless back and forth, a question hovered: Was it too late?

Given the intractability of Mr. Trump’s support and the cruel mathematics of capturing the nomination, it was unclear whether his shakiness in the debate would blunt his momentum, especially with his impressive lead in several key states that will vote over the next few days.

But for a single night, it seemed, the dynamic among the candidates shifted, not only because Mr. Trump appeared off-balance at times, but because his rivals seemed looser, more comfortable and even delighted to take him on. Mr. Rubio smiled as he issued biting dissections of the less savory chapters of Mr. Trump’s business history and even questioned the very essence of Mr. Trump’s success story, saying he was simply the heir to a vast fortune.

“If he hadn’t inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan?” Mr. Rubio said, as the audience erupted in laughter.

“That is so wrong,” Mr. Trump said, plaintively.

When, at another point, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Rubio did not know “anything about business,” the senator responded: “I don’t know anything about bankrupting four companies,” an allusion to Mr. Trump’s liberal use of bankruptcy protections over the years.

Republicans’ Last-Ditch Hope To Stop Donald Trump

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

If it’s not obvious by now, a ship called the Republican Party is perilously close to being hijacked by a populist pirate named Donald Trump. At the last three ports of call — New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — Trump overpowered his rivals, even capturing all 50 of the Palmetto State’s delegates. Armed with a blue-collar following, Trump could continue to win majorities of delegates without winning majorities of voters, and if he does, he could become unstoppable in as soon as three weeks.

Yet there is still a possibility, albeit a narrowing one, that Marco Rubio could turn the tide and ultimately win more delegates than Trump — even if he wins fewer overall primary votes.

Rubio’s increasingly tenuous path depends on his ability to win a series of winner-take-all states with high proportions of white-collar, college-educated Republicans, most critically his home state of Florida on March 15.  [Where Fivethirtyeight's own analysis shows Rubio behind Trump at present--Esco.]. 

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Rubio might hope to win large delegate margins with relatively small raw vote margins, while Trump wins far more votes elsewhere but reaps more modest delegate payoffs — raising the prospect of an unusual split votes/delegates verdict enabled by the GOP’s uneven delegate allocation rules. However, to move beyond wishful thinking and achieve such tactical victories, Rubio will need to consolidate much more of the non-Trump vote and rapidly grow his support in Democratic-leaning areas in an extremely compressed window of time. That’s a tall order, but it may be GOP leaders’ last hope to stop Trump, who clearly has the best chance of winning the nomination outright by the final primaries in June.

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After March 1, 52 percent of Republican delegates will be awarded on a winner-take-all basis, keeping alive the possibility that a large early Trump delegate lead could be erased quickly by modest losses later. March 15 is truly the GOP’s “day of reckoning,” and Florida may be the most pivotal state on the entire calendar.... if Rubio wins over enough of Jeb Bush’s old supporters to claim Florida’s 99-delegate jackpot, it could mark a long-awaited turning point in the race. At the very least, he could leverage such an outcome to try to prevent Trump from winning a majority of delegates by June.

The continued candidacies of Cruz, Ben Carson and Kasich are of great significance even if none of them any longer have a credible path to the nomination. The more delegates they siphon off on Super Tuesday and beyond, the greater the odds neither Rubio nor Trump racks up 1,237 delegates by June, raising the prospect of a multi-ballot Cleveland convention in July.

And what could possibly compound the chaos of a contested convention? Just imagine a convoluted scenario in which Trump winds up with fewer delegates than Rubio despite having won the most votes heading into a contested convention, while Cruz and Kasich delegates are the ultimate arbiters of the nomination on a second or third ballot. Cue an angry press conference at which a red-faced Trump accuses the Republican National Committee of fixing the rules against him and thwarting the will of GOP voters. But the RNC’s rules predate Trump’s rise, and they may be party leaders’ only hope of averting a likely Trump shipwreck in November. [But, in such a scenario, do not rule out Trump opting to run as an Independent.-Esco]

NY TIMES

OTHER LAST CHANCE SCENARIOS:

Billionaires get into the game

Top Republican donors have shied away from confronting Mr. Trump, but at some point the party’s bankrollers may get serious about saving it from a man they view as a catastrophe. If they did, this could represent a serious threat to Mr. Trump. Imagine tens of millions of dollars in attack ads blanketing the landscape of primary states.

Debates turn disastrous

The stage may get even tougher for him starting Thursday night in Houston: He can no longer count on a large field of opponents to shield him from a formidable puncher like Mr. Cruz, or from Mr. Rubio, who is also seeking to break through.

His own worst enemy

Republicans have bet for months that Mr. Trump would destroy his own campaign through sheer intemperance or incompetence. So far, they have been disappointed.

But just because Mr. Trump has not yet paid a price for his lack of discipline does not mean he never will. A monumental blunder could be much costlier now than it would have been earlier in the race. For many Republican leaders, the question is whether Mr. Trump’s eventual self-immolation comes before he wins the nomination, or in November.

WILL HE OR WONT HE GO ALL THE WAY? AND ARE HIS RIVALS ANY BETTER?

NATE SILVER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

If you think the arguments between the Republican candidates have been bad, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Pundits, reporters and political analysts are going to really have at it. Two competing theories about the Republican race are about to come to a head, and both of them can claim a victory of sorts after South Carolina.

The first theory is simple. It can be summarized in one word: Trump! The more detailed version would argue the following:

• Trump has easily won two of the first three states.
• Trump is ahead in the polls in pretty much every remaining state.
• Trump is ahead in delegates — in fact, he may win all 50 delegates from South Carolina.
• Trump has been extremely resilient despite pundits constantly predicting his demise.¹ He’s been at 35 percent in national polls for months now. That’s as steady as it gets!
• So, um, isn’t it obvious that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee?
• 
• Not so, say the Trump skeptics. Their case is pretty simple also:
• • Trump is winning states, but he’s only getting about one-third of the vote.
  • Trump has a relatively low ceiling on his support.
  • Trump now has a chief rival: Florida senator Marco Rubio.
  What did the Trump skeptics find to like about South Carolina? Quite a lot, actually. They’d point out that Trump faded down the stretch run, getting 32 percent of the vote after initially polling at about 36 percent after New Hampshire, because of his continuing struggles with late-deciding voters. They’d note that Trump’s numbers worsened from New Hampshire to South Carolina despite several candidates having dropped out. They’d say that Rubio, who went from 11 percent in South Carolina polls before Iowa² to 22 percent of the vote on Saturday night, had a pretty good night. They’d also say that Rubio will be helped by Jeb Bush dropping out, even if it had already become clear that Rubio was the preferred choice of Republican Party “elites.”
• 
• 
  
• So what?” sayeth the Trump optimists. Second place means you’re a loser! There’s no guarantee that the other candidates will drop out any time soon. And as Trump himself has argued, it’s a mistake to assume that all of the support from Bush and other candidates will wind up in Rubio’s column. Some of it will go to Trump! 
• I should note that the Trump skeptics find the Trump optimists a bit exasperating on this point. (Why are you talking about yourself in the third person, Nate?) The idea that Trump has a ceiling — or to be more precise, will encounter a lot of upward resistance as he seeks to gain more support — is not some type of special pleading. Instead, it’s a point the Trump skeptics have raised from the very earliest stages of Trump’s campaign. And they’ve seen some evidence to validate it from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, along with recent polling.

• A reasonable person might adjudicate the case as follows: Yes, if the Republican nomination becomes a two-man race between Trump and Rubio, it could be pretty close. But that might not happen, or it at least might not happen for a while, not until Trump is off to a pretty big head start in delegates. What happens in a three-way race between Trump, Rubio and Cruz is a little murky. This reasonable person would concede that Rubio had a chance. But who’s the favorite? Trump!
  The Trump skeptics might bring up one last line of argument. They’d claim,perhaps more tentatively than they did before, that GOP elites still have some ability to influence the race. Maybe voters don’t care about what “the establishment” thinks, but individual Republican politicians can still have some influence — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s endorsement of Rubio very probably helped him, for instance. These elites have quite a bit of money to throw around, especially with Bush out. ...Or they could try to rule by brute force: If the Republican race goes to a contested convention, which is not at all unimaginable, we’re suddenly back in the pre-1972, smoke-filled-rooms era, although probably with  delegates vaping instead of puffing on cigars.
  Betting markets, weighing all of this information, see the Republican race thusly: Trump at about 50 percent to win the nomination, Rubio at 40 percent, and the rest of the field at 10 percent. I might quibble here and there, but that seems like basically a sound assessment. Now, let’s get back to arguing on Twitter.

• PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
• The thing is, one of the two men who may still have a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee is a scary character. His notions on foreign policy seem to boil down to the belief that America can bully everyone into doing its bidding, and that engaging in diplomacy is a sign of weakness. His ideas on domestic policy are deeply ignorant and irresponsible, and would be disastrous if put into effect.
  The other man, of course, has very peculiar hair.
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• ....one shouldn’t treat establishment support as an indication that Mr. Rubio is moderate and sensible. On the contrary, not long ago someone holding his policy views would have been considered a fringe crank.
  Let me leave aside Mr. Rubio’s terrifying statements on foreign policy and his evident willingness to make a bonfire of civil liberties, and focus on what I know best, economics.
  You probably know that Mr. Rubio is proposing big tax cuts, and may know that among other things he proposes completely eliminating taxes on investment income — which would mean, for example, that Mitt Romney would end up owing precisely zero in federal taxes.
  What you may not know is that Mr. Rubio’s tax cuts would be almost twice as big as George W. Bush’s as a percentage of gross domestic product — despite the fact that federal debt is much higher than it was 15 years ago, and Republicans have spent the Obama years warning incessantly that budget deficits will destroy America, any day now.
  But not to worry: Mr. Rubio insists that his tax cuts would pay for themselves, by unleashing incredible economic growth. Never mind the complete absence of any evidence for this claim — in fact, the last two Democratic presidents, both of whom raised taxes on the rich, both presided over better private-sector job growth than Mr. Bush did (and that’s even if you leave out the catastrophe of Mr. Bush’s last year in office).
  Then there’s Mr. Rubio’s call for a balanced-budget amendment, which, aside from making no sense at the same time he is calling for budget-busting tax cuts, would have been catastrophic during the Great Recession.
  Finally, there’s monetary policy. Republicans have spent years inveighing against the Fed’s efforts to stave off economic disaster, warning again and again that runaway inflation is just around the corner — and being wrong all the way. But Mr. Rubio hasn’t changed his monetary tune at all, declaring a few days ago that it’s “not the Fed’s job to stimulate the economy” (although the law says that it is).
• 
• In short, Mr. Rubio is peddling crank economics. What’s interesting, however, is why. You see, he’s not pandering to ignorant voters; he’s pandering to an ignorant elite.
  Continue reading the main story

  
  

  Donald Trump’s rise has confirmed something polling data already suggested, namely, that most Republican voters don’t actually subscribe to much of the party’s official orthodoxy. Mr. Trump has said the unsayable on multiple issues, from declaring that we were deceived into war to calling for higher taxes on the wealthy (although his own plan does no such thing). Each time, party insiders have waited to see his campaign collapse as a result, and each time he has ended up paying no political price.
  So when Mr. Rubio genuflects at the altars of supply-side economics and hard money, he isn’t telling ordinary Republicans what they want to hear — by and large the party’s base couldn’t care less. He is, instead, pandering to the party’s elite, consisting mainly of big donors and the network of apparatchiks at think tanks, media organizations, and so on.
• 
• ----
• So don’t let anyone tell you that the Republican primary is a fight between a crazy guy and someone reasonable. It’s idiosyncratic, self-invented crankery versus establishment-approved crankery, and it’s not at all clear which is worse.
• 
  

IN SO CAR, TRUMP SOUNDLY BEATS RUBIO AND CRUZ, BY 10%. IN NEV, CLINTON DECISIVELY BEATS SANDERS BY 5%. BUSH DROPS OUT.

NY TIMES


In his emotional seven-minute farewell to a Republican Party that elevated his father and brother to the White House, there were two words that a choked-up Jeb Bush could not bring himself to utter: “Donald Trump.”

“It’s an enormous moment,” said Steve Schmidt, a top Republican strategist on John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008 and George W Bush’s in 2004. Unless further rivals immediately quit the race, “it’s very difficult to see how he is stopped on his way to the nomination.”



Even as he won in South Carolina, Mr. Trump seemed to overstay his welcome, revealing a tendency to test voters’ patience. In South Carolina, late-deciding voters made up 45 percent of the Republican electorate, and they uniformly scorned Mr. Trump. And surveys suggest that even some Republicans find him unlikable and lacking in compassion.

What’s more, so much of Mr. Trump’s campaign and his conduct remain startlingly unpredictable, from his spats with the pope to his shifting memories of his previous positions on momentous issues, such as his opposition (then later support, then opposition again) for the American-led invasion of Iraq.  In both states, he won decisively among both men and women, independents, voters without college degrees and those age 45 and over.

In South Carolina, he prevailed even after a brutal and deflating week, in which he was loudly and repeatedly booed on stage during a Republican debate; was denounced by the global head of the Catholic Church; praised Saddam Hussein as an effective fighter of terrorism; and declared that torture “works.”

VOX

Trump's Palmetto State win is also significant because Trump won the first Southern contest. It seemed, in theory, that the evangelical, staunchly conservative Texan Ted Cruz could be more appealing to Southern voters than Trump, a New Yorker who is not particularly ideologically conservative or religious. Yet Trump's anti-immigration message — focused on "making America great again" — seems to have resonated here.

That could matter a great deal, because those Super Tuesday states coming up so soon are mainly Southern states. If Trump follows up his win today with similar wins in states like Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas on Super Tuesday, he could rack up a pretty sizable delegate lead — and his remaining rivals would have to scramble to try and catch up.

The Republican nomination contest has entered a very dangerous phase for GOP elites. Only Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — both of whom they loathe — have won contests so far. And the upcoming calendar and delegate allocation rules could make it difficult for a mainstream contender like Marco Rubio to win many delegates if the field remains crowded, as the Upshot's Nate Cohn has written.

So, can Trump still be stopped?

The answer to that question is that, so long as the GOP field remains divided, Trump has a big opportunity to roll to a series of victories and rack up delegates. So, unless one clear challenger to Trump establishes himself soon, the outlook for his campaign will seem better than ever.

The problems going forward for Cruz:

 Even if Trump beats him in many of the Southern Super Tuesday contests, he could perform strongly enough to win second place in many of them. But the back half of the primary calendar is filled with relatively few "red" states — instead, the biggest delegate hauls will be found in big blue states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California. And it doesn't seem likely that Cruz can be competitive with Trump in blue states.

 Cruz's strategy hinges on winning the South. So losing to Trump by 10 points in what was supposed to be Cruz country — Southern, conservative and evangelical — is a big blow to his campaign.

And many large Southern states will start voting very soon. In just 10 days, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arkansas will all vote on Super Tuesday, alongside Cruz's home state of Texas and a few states from other regions. If Trump can replicate his South Carolina success in many of those other Southern states, it's very hard to see a path to victory for the Texas senator. 

But, by placing second to Trump in the Southern states, Cruz can place a big hurt on Rubio. 

Even if Trump beats him in many of the Southern Super Tuesday contests, Cruz could perform strongly enough to win second place in many of them. Many of these states allot a large share of their delegates by congressional district — three per district, with two going to the winner, one to the second-place finisher, and zero to whoever gets third.

So if Cruz prevents Rubio from taking second in many of these states, he could make the Florida senator miss out on lots of Southern state delegates — effectively putting Rubio even further behind Trump. And with so many delegates already allotted by mid-March, Rubio would face an uphill struggle to close the gap.

Many of the biggest blue- or purple-state delegate prizes — like New York, Pennsylvania, and California — vote in April or later. It's hard to see Cruz beating Rubio in the Northeast or on the West Coast. In states like those Rubio could have a shot at beating Trump head to head. 

Also, one would think, Rubio would win his home state of Florida, a big winner-take-all delegate prize set to vote on March 15. 

But, beyond Florida, there's still one lingering establishment loose end, and his name is John Kasich.

Most observers think Kasich is drawing away votes from Rubio. And he could well pick up some of Jeb Bush's supporters too, now that Bush is out.

Kasich's advisers are vowing that he'll stay in the race despite his poor performance in South Carolina. He did, after all, finish second in New Hampshire. So his strategy going forward is to essentially ignore the South and instead target Super Tuesday Northeastern states, the March 8 Michigan primary, and his home state of Ohio (which holds a winner-take-all contest on March 15).

The Ohio governor's strategy is particularly problematic for Rubio because over half of overall delegates will be awarded by the time the dust settles on March 15. So, unless Kasich's support plummets before then, he could well draw enough votes to prevent Rubio from winning some states.

But assuming Rubio survives this obstacle course, Republican elites are pretty confident that Rubio can beat Trump one-on-one, and that makes sense. Rubio's favorable ratings among Republican primary voters are far higher than Trump's. And he's led Trump in some head-to-head polls.

But Trump hasn't seriously attacked Rubio yet.

When Ben Carson looked like a threat to Trump, Trump took him down. When Jeb Bush looked like a threat to Trump, Trump took him down. And when Ted Cruz looked like a threat to Trump, Trump took him down.

Trump will be far more unscrupulous once he sets his sights on Rubio. He will be willing to play to GOP base voters' worst ethnic and racial fears. He will bring up Rubio's brother-in-law, who was convicted for cocaine trafficking. He will publicly spread the rumors about Rubio that Bush's team just whispered about privately. And, of course, there's that matter of immigration reform, which Bush couldn't attack Rubio on.

Point is, things will get very, very ugly. We don't yet know whether Rubio can beat Trump in a knife fight. But, to win the nomination, that's what he's going to have to pull off.

NY TIMES

On the Democratic side, the entrance poll in Nevada showed Mrs. Clinton’s strongest support came from her coalition of women, older voters, blacks, college graduates, political moderates, union households and those who have voted in previous caucuses. Mrs. Clinton’s strong showing among black voters (she was backed by three-quarters of African-Americans), bodes well as she heads to South Carolina, where blacks made up 55 percent of the 2008 Democratic primary electorate.

Mrs. Clinton also won the support of caucusg oers who favored experience or the ability to win in November. She also performed best among those who preferred a continuation of President Obama’s policies and those who rated the economy or health care as the most important issue facing the country.

Mr. Sanders drew his support from men, Hispanics, liberals, first-time caucus goers and young people. While his support among young voters continued to be strong in Nevada, only a little over one-third of participants in the caucuses were under the age of 45.

Those who most valued honesty and trustworthiness, as well as those preferring a candidate who cares about people like them, sided with Mr. Sanders. He beat Mrs. Clinton by 2 to 1 among those who valued income inequality above all other issues.

VOX

Clinton won the most votes and the most delegates. Not by a landslide, but by enough to break Sanders' momentum. The number of delegates at stake was not enormous and Nevada is in no way decisive, but the map ahead looks very rough for Sanders.

Next up is the South Carolina primary and it is going to feature a huge quantity of African-American voters with whom Clinton has an enormous advantage. Then comes Super Tuesday on March 1 featuring many other black-heavy southern states. The race isn't over yet, but Clinton is breathing a huge sigh of relief and Sanders' path to victory now looks very difficult.

Winner: Democratic socialism

Clinton has formidable advantages in this campaign — including a much broader network of endorsers, surrogates, and policy experts along with superior name recognition and a bigger, more experienced staff. Sanders had really only one advantage: A message about transforming the Democratic Party into a much more ideologically rigorous political party than its historically been, advocating a robust European-stye social democratic agenda of free public provision of health care and higher education. It looks like this message won't be enough to put Sanders over the top, but it took him much closer than the Democratic establishment believed possible twelve, six, or even three months ago. Ambitious politicians in the party are going to be paying attention, and something like the Sanders agenda will be the agenda of the Democratic Party's future.

Loser: The political revolution

Sanders has brought two distinctive ideas to the 2016 primary campaign. One is a policy agenda. The other is a theory of politics, the notion that a candidate who eschewed corporate cash and spoke bold truths could spark a political revolution grounded in mobilizing vast hordes of new voters. What we're seeing so far is that there's no sign this works.

Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston reports Democratic turnout at 80,000. It was almost 108,000 in '08.

Sanders is doing very well with young people and with liberals, but he's not transforming electorates and even if he were to win the nomination he would still have to grapple with the basic reality that the median voter in the United States is politically moderate.