South Carolina

As of this moment, Donald Trump has 736 delegates and is (mostly) smoothly sailing to the nomination with Ted Cruz almost 273 behind him at 463. However, there is suddenly an all too real chance that 273 lead can melt to as little as 173 with Trump's delegate count dropping by 50 as a result of what happened during this week's CNN townhall meeting when as previously reported, Trump reneged on his pledge to support the GOP candidate. The reason is that by doing so, he may have jeopardized his hold on South Carolina’s 50 delegates.

Update: CBS and CNN call it for Clinton. It was over before it started.

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Last weekend, on the heels of a decisive (if expected) victory for Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton reclaimed the momentum in the race for the Democratic nomination by escaping the Nevada caucuses with a narrow victory over the Vermont senator.

Trump won South Carolina, and was actually running a little bit ahead of his position in the polling average after almost all of votes had been tallied. With 94% of the vote counted, Trump almost had 33%. Cruz and Rubio were jostling for second place, but they are so close to each other that either of them can present the result as a tie. Being passed by Rubio isn’t good for Cruz, but Cruz can take some consolation from the fact that Rubio trails him in almost every contest over the next two weeks. Kasich and Bush did worse than I thought they would, and tied each other at around 8%.

Live coverage of the Nevada caucus and South Carolina primary

Jonathan Tobin wonders if it’s too late to thin the Republican field and stop Trump:

We will eventually get down to two or three Republican candidates. But the only way Republicans can be sure that a newly minted conservative that even now still spouts positions on foreign policy and entitlements that sound like recycled Obama talking points, will be if that happens in the next few days.