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Adam C. Smith: Five things we learned in Iowa, New Hampshire

 
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks to his supporters at a primary night gathering, held at Alpine Grove Banquet facility on Feb. 9, 2016, in Hollis, N.H. Cruz finished third in the New Hampshire primary behind Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.  (Photo by Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks to his supporters at a primary night gathering, held at Alpine Grove Banquet facility on Feb. 9, 2016, in Hollis, N.H. Cruz finished third in the New Hampshire primary behind Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. (Photo by Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images)
Published Feb. 11, 2016

TAMPA

Contrary to expectations that Iowa and New Hampshire would bring clarity, the topsy-turvy 2016 presidential race looks as muddled and volatile as ever and neither primary appears to be winding down soon.

We've said goodbye to several candidates — Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee after Iowa and Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina after New Hampshire — but we still have a jumble of contenders vying to be the mainstream alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. That includes Floridians Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

Still, after two weeks on the snowy roads and in the overheated VFW halls and community rooms of Iowa and New Hampshire, here are five things we have learned:

1 Donald Trump is rolling toward the nomination. No, it's not a sure thing, but if Trump were a conventional candidate, the pundit class would be looking at current public polling, his performance in Iowa and especially New Hampshire, and declaring him the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.

The exit polls in New Hampshire, where he beat second-place finisher John Kasich 2-to-1, show the extraordinary breadth of his appeal. Trump handily won over moderates, conservatives, Republicans and independents. He won college-educated voters and non-college educated. He won evangelical voters, and upper-, middle- and lower-income Granite Staters. The candidate generating so much criticism for his hard-edged rhetoric on immigrants even won voters who support legal amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

The path ahead also favors Trump. As much as the GOP establishment hoped New Hampshire would elevate one mainstream conservative, the establishment wing of the party is as splintered as ever. Not only do Kasich and Bush leave New Hampshire stronger, but establishment front-runner Rubio leaves considerably weaker.

As the race heads south, including South Carolina's Feb. 20 primary and the so-called "SEC primary" on March 1 that includes several southern states, Trump and Cruz both look like the strongest candidates based on early polling. But most of those early state elections will divvy out delegates proportionally, meaning no candidate is likely to build up a big lead in delegates and the underdog establishment candidates might have less incentive to drop out so long as they have money.

Then comes March 15, when Florida (99 delegates) and Ohio (66 delegates) hold winner-take-all primaries. The average of recent Republican polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com shows Trump blowing away the field, with 40 percent support, compared to 19 percent for Cruz, 14 percent for Rubio and 9 percent for Bush.

2 Don't overestimate Jeb Bush's resurgence. Florida's former governor is no longer the walking dead candidate. It matters a lot that he beat Rubio in New Hampshire and that the establishment candidate who topped Bush was Kasich, who has a difficult landscape ahead with little money or infrastructure in South Carolina. Bush ground out a successful New Hampshire outcome through the substance and heart he showed in town hall meeting after town hall meeting and improved debate performances.

But talking to countless voters in New Hampshire and Iowa over the past two weeks, it was clear antipathy toward Bush is vast. Even voters who profess to like him see him as a weak general election candidate. Never before has a candidate spent so much money — $80 million in TV alone — and performed so poorly. Bush has the highest unfavorability rating among the Republican candidates.

3 Democrats have a looming mess on their hands. As much as Democrats have been relishing the turmoil in the Republican primary, New Hampshire showed their problems might be just as deep. Hillary Clinton — who won New Hampshire's primary eight years ago, who has been campaigning there for more than two decades and who led the race by 40 percentage points a year ago — was crushed by a democratic Socialist. No amount spin or campaign shakeups can counter the evidence that she is a deeply flawed candidate at a time when voters of all stripes are fed up with the political establishment.

Even the historic nature of her candidacy seems to have little resonance. Exit polls showed Bernie Sanders actually beat her among women, 55 percent to 44 percent.

The terrain becomes much tougher for Sanders as the race moves to states like South Carolina and in a month to Florida, which are far less liberal and far less white than Iowa and New Hampshire. But Sanders has plenty of resources to plow ahead, relying mostly on small, online donations, while Clinton has to replenish her campaign accounts with time-consuming fundraising receptions. If the Vermont senator starts gaining support with African-American voters (57 percent of the South Carolina Democratic primary electorate is non-white), Clinton will be in real trouble.

She already faces a potential campaign-crushing FBI investigation into her email server. Now she faces the likelihood of a long slog of a primary race against Sanders. The longer her campaign looks shaky, the louder the pleas will be for Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren to step up.

4 Marco Rubio has a glass jaw. Rubio's odd, robotic debate performance might well prove to be the downfall of his campaign. A central argument — that he's the strongest candidate Republicans could nominate — is now in doubt. If he looks like a shallow, nervous rookie on the Republican debate stage, imagine what Clinton could do to him when he keeps repeating memorized sound bites.

Rubio, after initially sounding like Baghdad Bob and insisting his debate performance was fabulous, took responsibility for it Tuesday night. Anecdotal evidence on the ground in New Hampshire suggests the debate was devastating to him.

"After the debate, there was a big difference. It was like the earth shifted," said Eric Zichella, a lobbyist in Miami who spent much of the past week knocking on doors and phoning undecided voters in New Hampshire.

The Rubio campaign has long viewed Bush as a virtually irrelevant player in the race for the nomination. Rubio still enjoys more goodwill among party activists and many voters than Bush, but Rubio's former mentor again looks like a giant threat to his viability. What's left of their friendship will be put under greater threat in the coming weeks.

Among the talking points the Bush campaign distributed to supporters Tuesday night: "Senator Rubio has lost momentum and has been exposed as completely unprepared to be president. Rubio has demonstrated no respect for the nomination process and expects this to be a coronation."

5 Ted Cruz is on a roll. For all the attention on the establishment candidates, the race might really come down to Trump and Cruz. Cruz has spent less than $14 million on TV, winning the Iowa caucuses and earning a stronger-than-expected third place in New Hampshire.

Bush and his super PAC have spent nearly $80 million to achieve sixth- and fourth-place finishes. Rubio and his allies have spent nearly $50 million to finish third and fifth.

Cruz has plenty of money and a strong voter targeting and mobilization program, and has been the leading candidate among evangelical voters. The next few weeks are loaded with states where evangelical votes are a major part of the electorate, and Cruz is well positioned.

Contact Adam C. Smith at asmith@tampabay.com. Follow @adamsmithtimes.