ELDER PATRIOT – Yesterday’s caucuses in Kansas, Kentucky and Maine, as well as the primary held in Louisiana didn’t do much to move the needle among the GOP frontrunners but it did clarify what can be expected as we move forward in the process. And, it served notice to the Republican Elites that they are finished and will soon be evicted from their party.
It’s become evident that Donald Trump does extremely well in open primaries where he has won 9 out of the 10 held so far. This points to Trump’s broader appeal outside the bounds of traditional registered Republicans and bodes well as a harbinger for success in November’s general election.
Only one other viable candidate has emerged, Ted Cruz who has developed an effective ground game due to the superior campaign organization that he’s built. This has been on display in caucus states where the ability to influence voters one-on-one is more pronounced and where only registered Republicans can participate. In these states Cruz has more than held his own winning four out of the six caucuses to date. Unfortunately for Cruz there are only three caucus states left to be decided and they only hold the potential for 87 delegates and those delegates will be allocated proportionately.
There was one caucus open to Independents and Democrats held in Minnesota and Cruz lost that to Marco Rubio. There is no takeaway from this other than the people of Minnesota have historically been out of step with the rest of America’s voters.
Many delegate-rich states remain to be contested and the formats under which they’ll be contested along with the make-up of their electorate would appear to favor Donald Trump although a clear path to the 1237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination before the convention is far from being assured after yesterday’s results.
Trump’s path to 1237 became less certain in light of the relatively small margin of victory that he won the Louisiana primary with. Trump’s percentage of the vote was within the margin of error of pre-primary polls but Cruz won the votes of undecided voters and those recently disenfranchised by the withdrawal of the candidates they had been supporting and outdistanced his pre-primary poll numbers by a healthy margin.
If the reason for this is the blistering attacks that the establishment has launched against Trump then Trump better find a way to deflect them because they will not stop no matter the cost to donors or the party. Even as Rubio and Mitt Romney lay burned in the ashes of their unfathomable attacks on Trump, the party will remain committed to this strategy if it appears to be even the least bit successful. At least we get to watch the globalist’s lemmings destroy themselves one at a time. It’s small but fitting consolation for what they’ve done to us.
Trump laid the groundwork for his counter-offensive last night during a press conference when he suggested the reason they are so opposed to him was the threat that he posed to their gravy train. It was a subtle warning that probably was missed by most listeners but I assure you that shot across their bow wasn’t missed by leadership.
Regardless of everything else, 75% of rank and file Republicans resoundingly rejected the party’s elites yesterday. That is a message that no one can deny.