It would be exceptionally foolish for me, the man who said Donald Trump could very well run the table, to predict the next twist and turn of this campaign with any confidence. It feels like this thing is now Trump’s to lose, since he will run better in South Carolina than Cruz will in Michigan, and the establishment is in deep disarray. It feels like Clinton needs a win to right her campaign, but that one is fairly assured her in South Carolina for demographic reasons.
Contrary to wishful thinking, the results of Iowa and New Hampshire only confirm the same stark reality that has haunted the Republican nomination process from the beginning: Party rules are a tragic accident waiting to happen.
Looking through the New Hampshire exit poll, I was struck again by how broad Trump’s support is. Like past front-runners, he wins with moderates, but he also gets significant support from all kinds of conservatives. Unlike Cruz, whose support is heavily concentrated among the “very conservative” voters, Trump draws evenly from all ideological groups. Unlike Kasich, he is very competitive among conservative voters despite deviating from the party and movement line much more often than the Ohio governor has.
Why hasn’t the Republican “establishment” stopped Trump? One theory holds that party elders aren’t so anti-Donald as they seem. Trump is obnoxious, certainly. But he also a dealmaker, and therefore the kind of person with whom transactional politicians could do business. The real threat, this theory holds, is Ted Cruz. So maybe the party is willing to accept Trump to avoid a hostile takeover by ideological purists.
Anti-Trump Republicans were confident in the weeks leading up to last night’s primary that New Hampshire would consolidate the “establishment” vote behind one of the candidates, and that would create a three-way race in later states that would eventually lead to the defeat of both Trump and Cruz. Invariably, the candidate cast for this role was Rubio, and the governors running against him were dismissed as hopeless and soon to drop out.