Decision Desk, Indiana: Hoosier Nominee? Trump

Decision Desk, Acela Corridor Primaries: Trump Train Speeds To Cleveland

Decision Desk, New York: The Empire (State) Strikes Back

Cruzin’ to Cleveland

Decison Desk, Wisconsin: Cruz Badgers Trump

Decision Desk, Rocky Mountain High: Trump’s Canyon

by Henry Olsen
The canyon separating Trump from his competitors will widen a little bit more.

The states selecting delegates today, Arizona and Utah, are known for their spacious and awesome canyons. So it is fitting they vote as a tandem, as today will see the canyon separating Donald Trump from his competitors widen just a little bit more.

Trump will win the larger of the two, Arizona, largely because it has very favorable demographics for him. It is arguably ground zero for the nation’s illegal immigration problem, making his call for a wall more salient here than elsewhere. It has relatively few very conservative evangelicals, the GOP faction that has thus far proven to be his main rival’s base of support. And it suffered a severe drop in real estate prices following the financial collapse, increasing the reality and the perception of economic dismay that has helped fuel Trump’s rise. Nevada and Florida had similar factors at play, and Trump won with 46 percent of the vote in each state.

Utah, though, is another matter. Heavily Mormon counties in Nevada and Idaho have voted for Ted Cruz by large margins so far, and Mormon icon Mitt Romney’s vociferous opposition to Trump has only intensified recently. Trump not only loses those areas, he gets annihilated. Trump’s share of the vote in heavily Mormon eastern Idaho ranged from a HIGH of 25 percent to a low of under 8 percent. Seventy-five percent of Utah’s population is contained in just four counties: Salt Lake has the lowest Mormon population of those at 56 percent. Expect Trump to not even break 20 percent statewide and Cruz to win all forty of Utah’s delegates by garnering over fifty percent.

I expect Trump to win all 58 of Arizona’s delegates, giving him a 58-40 advantage on the night.  State analyses are below.

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Arizona (58 delegates) - Arizona is a statewide winner-take-all contest. The polls so far vary in quality, but are remarkably similar in their predicted outcome: Trump by between 12 and 14 points over Cruz. I suspect that will just about right after all the votes are counted.

Arizona encourages early voting, so we should be able to know who won (or if there is even a contest) relatively soon after the polls close.  Phoenix’s Maricopa County cast about 60 percent of the vote in the 2012 GOP race, and Tucson’s Pima County cast another 16 percent. Early voting results for these two counties will let us know if staying up late is worth the effort.

My ranges are Trump 41-50, Cruz 29-38, Kasich 15-22. My best guess is Trump 47, Cruz 34, Kasich 16. Trump wins all 58 delegates.

Utah (40 delegates) - Utah awards all 40 of its delegates to a candidate who takes 50 percent or more of the vote. If no one reaches that bar, it awards delegates proportionally based on the statewide vote to all candidates receiving at least 15 percent of the statewide vote. This is why Kasich is campaigning in Utah: if Cruz falls below 50 percent, Kasich will get delegates. The only poll conducted since Rubio dropped out had Cruz at 53, Kasich 29, and Trump at 11 percent. Trump’s extraordinarily low standing is not likely to be an error. The other three Utah polls conducted this year had him at 17, 18, and 21 percent, and Romney’s anti-Trump offensive is clearly drawing blood.

My ranges are Cruz 48-55, Kasich 27-35, Trump 12-19. My best guess is Cruz 54, Kasich 33, Trump 13. Cruz wins all 40 delegates.

 

Decision Desk, Ides of March: Et Tu, GOP?

Decision Desk, March 8: Trump 2, Cruz 2

Decision Desk, Super Saturday: Trump 3, Rubio 1, Cruz 1?

Decision Desk, Super Tuesday: Trumpocalypse Now

Decision Desk, Nevada: Another Trump Blowout?

Rubio Will Barely Lose CD 1 and 4; Trump Likely Wins All Delegates

by Henry Olsen

Trump’s victory is pretty sweeping. He will clearly carry five of the state’s seven congressional districts, garnering him fifteen delegates. His statewide win gets him another 29, so he is guaranteed of winning 44 of the state’s 50 delegates.

The only questions now are CD 1 and CD 4. CD 1 is a probable Trump win, but it’s hard to say because the two largest counties, Charleston and Beaufort, are split. Rubio carried Charleston and only narrowly lost Beaufort. We know from the exit poll that Rubio beat Trump among highly educated and wealthier Republicans: if the portions of these counties excluded from CD 1 are more socio-economically downscale, then it’s possible that Rubio can eke out a victory. But the likelier outcome is a narrow Trump win.  

John Kasich will have cost Rubio those delegates if Trump does win, as these were Kasich’s best counties in the state.

CD 4 is Trey Gowdy’s seat, comprising the bulk of Greeneville and Spartanburg counties. Trump won Spartanburg by 3,600 votes over Rubio, but is only narrowly leading him in Greeneville county. Greeneville has nearly half of its vote yet to report, so Marco could steal three delegates from The Donald. But the likelier result is another narrow Trump win.

When the only question is whether he wins 50-0 or 44-6, it’s clear this is a night of celebration for Donald J. Trump.

Cruz Losing Religious Evangelical Heartland

by Henry Olsen

“Very conservative evangelicals” are the dominant force in many South Carolina counties, but you wouldn’t know it from tonight’s results. Take Chesterfield county, one of six sizeable counties to have voted for Bush in 2000, Huckabee in 2008, and giving Santorum over 20% in 2012. All 25 precincts are in, and Ted Cruz, who has based his campaign on capturing this vote, has lost it by 8 percent to Donald Trump.

Cruz is also losing to Trump in four of the other five religious bastion counties – York, Spartanburg, Lancaster, and Cherokee.  If he can’t beat Trump here, he’s really got his work cut out for him in the March 1 SEC primary states.

Jim Morrison and The Doors to Jeb: This Is The End

by Henry Olsen

John Kasich told us he likes indie rock this week, but the best musical metaphor for Jeb’s campaign comes from the classic ’60s rock band, The Doors. The lyrics are disturbing and harsh, but with Bush currently getting less than 10% of the total vote and with his stronger counties comprising a larger share of the votes counted now than they will of the final vote, the message for Bush 3.0 is clear: This Is The End.

Cruz Wins Very Conservatives, Loses Others

by Henry Olsen

Ted Cruz’s South Carolina performance will conform to my model, if the exits are right. They show him winning the very conservatives 39-27 over Trump. But he loses somewhat conservatives by a 34-20 margin (Rubio gets 26 percent). And Cruz gets a paltry 9 percent among the 17 percent of the electorate who are moderate (Trump wins 31 percent, Rubio 25 percent, and Kasich 20).

This is exactly the voter profile that Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum showed in 2008 and 2012. And that’s not good enough to win, not even close.

Early Exits - Trump 30, Cruz 25.5, Rubio 23

by Henry Olsen

The early exit poll, over 2000 respondents, has Trump up by 4.5 percent over Cruz and by 7 over Rubio. Bush, Kasich, and Carson are all in the single digits.

If the results bear this out, then expect Cruz to challenge for some delegates in CDs 4, 5, and 7, and Rubio to challenge in CD 1. But South Carolina is winner take all at all levels, so any statewide win will give Trump 29 delegates. The winner of each CD will get three delegates per district.

 

I Don’t Believe The Latest SC Polls - Here’s Why

by Henry Olsen

Two polls, one from Clemson University and the other from Opinion Savvy, have been released since I wrote my blog post on SC. Both have Trump in the high 20s, suggesting tomorrow night will be closer than I predicted. Here’s why I discount each poll.

The Opinion Savvy poll says fifty percent of the GOP electorate will be very conservative. No primary has ever had that large a percentage of very conservatives in the voting population, and South Carolina typically has between thirty and thirty-five percent very conservatives. Since we know Trump does less well among the most conservative Republicans, this inaccurate voter sample underestimates Trump’s true level of support. The fact he still gets 27 percent in this poll shows how well he is really doing.

The Clemson poll only includes voters who said they cast ballots in at least two of the state’s last three primary elections. This means that Trump’s new voters, those who are too young to have voted in prior races and those who are no habitual primary voters, are not included in the sample. The fact he still gets 28 percent in this poll again reiterates the breadth of his support.

Decision Desk, South Carolina: The Field Winnows

Trump Holds On To Second

by Henry Olsen

Looks like Trump will hold on to second. There might still be another 10-15,000 votes left to come in, but it would be almost impossible for Rubio to overturn a 2,300 vote gap from that. So Cruz, Trump, Rubio in that order, less than five points separating first from third.  On to New Hampshire!

Iowa Delegate Count: Cruz 7, Trump 6, Rubio 6

by Henry Olsen

Good thing this race is all about momentum, because if it were about delegates tonight would be a big bunch of nothing. Iowa awards its 27 pledged delegates (three delegates will attend unpledged) proportionally according to tonight’s caucus results, with no minimum number of votes needed. With 85% in, Cruz would get 7 delegates, Trump 6, and Rubio 6. Carson would get 2, maybe 3, and Paul, Bush, Kasich, Fiorina, Huckabee, and Christie would get 1.

New Hampshire also awards delegates proportionally, so the first contest that matters in the race for delegates is South Carolina.