Once again, election results are coming in. It was a huge night and we have already lost one candidate. As of this writing, the only people that have won are Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and John Kasich. Ted Cruz could end up winning in Missouri and Sanders could win there as well, but other then that, it was a huge night for Clinton and Trump. Here's my take on it.
1. Marco Rubio is done. He got destroyed in Florida, his home state, and did not do well in any other state. He only got 27% or so in his Florida while Donald Trump wiped the floor with him. Why did Rubio lose? He had looked like the establishment favorite (remember when Rubio was the tea party darling and a threat to the establishment? Neither do I!), but he was never able to pull the anti-trump vote together. Part of that had to do with his horrible debate performance, where he kept repeating himself. Chris Christie destroyed him in that debate and Rubio never recovered.
And then he threw away whatever advantages he had. Rubio, the policy wonk who never went negative, went completely negative. Trying to tap into the outrage that Donald Trump had tapped into, he started attacking Trump with low-brow childish insults. Not only was Donald Trump way better at insulting people then Little Marco was, it also alienated his supporters. His supporters were turned off by his pee and penis jokes and fled from him to Kasich and Cruz. He tried to turn it around at the end, but it was way too late. And now he is gone.
2. Hillary Clinton just destroyed Bernie Sanders. She's got a massive lead on Sanders, who didn't win a single state as of this writing. He could possibly get Missouri, but I don't see it happening. And even if he does, it won't help him all that much. I don't know if Sanders can pull it back anymore. Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democrats candidate.
3. John Kasich won Ohio, but it doesn't really matter. All it will do is drag out this campaign, and maybe derail the convention into a brokered mess. But at this point even that seems unlikely. Kasich has no chance to win and he is essentially in the same position that Marco Rubio was in. He won a single state and that is all he is every going to do. He should drop out right away.
4. Ted Cruz had a poor night. Right now the Missouri race is way too close (it keeps switching between the candidates) to call but even if he does end up winning he's still way behind in candidates. If he loses he will be very far behind Donald Trump and if he does win, he will be in basically the same place he was before today's primary. 100 delegates behind Donald Trump.
5. Despite a spate of utterly desperate and unhinged attacks on him, Donald Trump still stands. They have called him everything, a racist, sexist, xenophobe, a warmonger, and every other insult in the book. They even managed to shut down one of his rallies and tried to blame him for the violence that was caused by liberal agitators. None of it has worked. In fact, the more attacks that are leveled at Trump, the more primary states he won. I am convinced that the incident in Chicago was a major factor for him winning that state. But they just don't learn do they? They have dug themselves a massive hole and instead of stopping their solution is to dig even harder. In the end that hole is going to be a metaphorical grave of their own making...
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