Marco Rubio Wins Minnesota Republican Caucuses

Heh, he finally won a state.

At WSJ.

And watch, at Fox News, "Fox News projects Marco Rubio wins Minnesota."

Diamond and Silk, 'Stump for Trump' Gals: Marco Rubio 'Had a Gay Lifestyle in the Past...' (VIDEO)

Oh boy.

This video's way worth it just for the look on Carol Costello's face when the "Stump for Trump" gals report that they've Googled Marco Rubio's past and "he owes America and the gay community an apology."

At Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "The ‘Stump for Trump’ Girls Just Said on CNN That Marco Rubio Had ‘A Gay Lifestyle’."

And on YouTube, "Diamond & Silk : Marco Rubio Had a Gay Lifestyle in the Past."

Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump, Latest Twist in Wild Republican Presidential Campaign (VIDEO)

From Maggie Haberman, at the New York Times, "Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump and Calls Marco Rubio 'Desperate'" (via Memeorandum):

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey endorsed Donald J. Trump on Friday, a major turn in a wild race and one that gives the New York businessman a significant boost as he heads into the pivotal “Super Tuesday” contests.

Mr. Christie was a candidate for president himself until he came in sixth place in New Hampshire’s primary. Seeing his political career facing an abrupt conclusion after his failed presidential campaign, he expressed his anger Friday at Senator Marco Rubio, whom he was said to be upset with, blaming the “super PAC” backing the Florida senator for halting his momentum in New Hampshire with a string of slash-and-burn ads.

The endorsement came a day after Mr. Rubio, in a withering debate performance, turned his guns on Mr. Trump for the first time, and followed up with his attacks on Friday morning, calling Mr. Trump a “con artist.”

At Friday’s news conference announcing the endorsement, which was peppered with demeaning insults of Mr. Rubio by the two men, Mr. Christie repeatedly attacked Mr. Rubio, calling his behavior at the debate “desperate” and reflective of a “losing campaign.”

Mr. Trump welcomed the endorsement with warm praise for the New Jersey governor... 

More.

BONUS: CNN's video is here, "Chris Christie endorses Donald Trump."

And watch this Gretchen Carlson interview with the Weekly Standard's Michael Warren, "How Donald Trump's presser changed the media's narrative."

Marco Rubio Attacks Donald Trump During Texas Campaign Rally (VIDEO)

So here comes Marco Rubio now, finally finding his wheelhouse?

Heh, he's on a roll. It's an amazing departure from his "Rubiot" performance a couple of debates back.

The obvious question is whether it's too little too late?

Watch, a CNN video, via Free Beacon, "Rubio shreds Donald Trump at rally, mocks his tweets, age, debate performance."

BONUS: At Twitchy, "‘Bit of his own medicine’: Marco Rubio reads Trump’s #MeanTweets [video]," and "Chuck Todd wonders if Rubio’s ‘con artist’ jab at Trump could backfire."

Donald Trump Leads Marco Rubio by 11 Points in Latest IBD/TIPP National Poll

Rubio's trolling Trump, and everyone's getting all jazzy-pants about it.

I seriously doubt last night's debate will make much difference, however. Trump's going to roll up a bunch of wins next Tuesday, not the least of which in Florida.

Here's the new IBD poll, "Clinton, Sanders Are in a Dead Heat; Trump Leads But Rubio Rises."

The Dems are statistically tied, but Trump still holds a large lead in the GOP race:

Despite her win in the Nevada caucuses Saturday, Hillary Clinton’s lead among Democrats over Bernie Sanders has evaporated nationally, 45% to 43%, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Last month, Clinton topped Sanders 50% to 38%.

On the GOP side, Donald Trump held steady at 31%. Ted Cruz dropped a point to 20%. Marco Rubio, however, saw his support climb eight percentage points to reach 18% — a clear sign that much of the support of candidates dropping out the race have been gravitating to Rubio.

Meanwhile, Ben Carson has 8% and John Kasich has risen to 7%. Both are resisting pressure to step aside.

Trump’s lead, however, narrows considerably when first and second choices are combined. While 42% picked Trump as either their first or second choice, Cruz and Rubio were tied at 39%.

An analysis of the 12 states that vote for GOP candidates on Super Tuesday shows that Trump holds a similar lead, with 31% support. However, Rubio moves into second place at 23%, followed by Cruz at 20%.

Given Trump’s definitive win in Nevada on Tuesday, a string of victories on March 1 could give him a virtually insurmountable lead for the GOP nomination...

More.

Plus, on Florida, at ABC News, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump Leads Marco Rubio by 16 Points in New Florida Poll."

BONUS: At WFAA News 8 Dallas, via Memeorandum, "Cruz, Trump tied in WFAA Texas poll."

Marco Rubio Goes After Trump at Houston GOP Debate (VIDEO)

I'm tired of the debates, frankly.

But this is pretty good.

At Politico, "Rubio ambushes Trump at GOP debate: The Florida senator, desperate for a surge ahead of Super Tuesday, delivered an all-out assault on the Republican front-runner on the Houston stage."

Donald Trump Taunts Republican Rivals, Predicts Election Steamroller Toward the Nomination (VIDEO)

Hey, this is freakin' too good!

And I was watching last night as well.

At Politico, "Trump taunts rivals and predicts quick end to GOP race" (via Memeorandum).

Watch the victory speech at KTNV News 13 Las Vegas, "Donald Trump makes victory speech in NV."

And more, at CNN:

Donald Trump Wins Nevada Caucuses (VIDEO)

It was interesting watching last night, for one thing because I saw no polls on Nevada before the caucuses. But Fox News called the race immediately as the voting ended, so I guess the results were never in doubt.

I love this.

At the Las Vegas Sun, "With commanding Nevada victory, Trump strengthens his lead in GOP race":

Ten seconds before the Nevada caucuses officially closed at 9 p.m., an excited crowd of several hundred Donald Trump supporters counted down in a ballroom at Treasure Island.

As the clock struck 9, CNN called the election for Trump, sending the crowd into choruses of wild applause, whistles and chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” that echoed throughout the room where Trump’s caucus watch party was being held.

The win comes as no surprise: Expectations were particularly high for Trump over the past few days. Polling in the state — scarce and uncertain as it was — placed Trump with a wide lead over Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Fresh off a first-place victory in South Carolina, Trump carried that momentum over into Nevada, holding two packed rallies Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas and Sparks.

A solid victory in Nevada is expected to propel Trump solidly forward to next week, when 11 states hold their nominating contests on Super Tuesday. The Nevada win is Trump’s third first-place win in a row, following New Hampshire and South Carolina. (The only state he hasn’t won was Iowa, the first nominating contest, which Cruz carried.)

Nevada was long projected to be Rubio’s firewall, but instead he left the state in second place.

Trump won 46 percent of the vote. Rubio placed second at 24 percent and Cruz was in third at 21 percent. Ben Carson garnered 5 percent of the vote, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is at 4 percent.

“A couple of months ago, we weren’t expected to win this one, you know that, right?” Trump told the crowd through whistles and cheers Tuesday night. “Of course, if you listened to the pundits we weren't expected to win too much, and now we're winning, winning, winning.”

The question now for Rubio and Cruz in the coming days is what, if anything, can knock Trump off his game...

Actually, Cruz is collapsing, big time. I expect he'll be getting calls to quit the race soon, especially next week, if his slide continues on Super Tuesday.

More.

Plus, at Politico, "Cruz: It's me vs. Trump now":

Ted Cruz was running a very close third in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday night when he gave his concession speech, but that didn't stop him from declaring the Republican presidential primary a two-campaign race.

For Cruz, it's down to him and Donald Trump...

And at Memeorandum.

The New Shape of the Republican Race

From Ronald Brownstein, at the Atlantic (via Memeorandum):

After his solid, broadly based victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Donald Trump now holds a commanding position in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

But Trump still faces two “known unknowns,” to borrow the memorable phrase from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the Iraq War that Trump now excoriates. One is whether Trump has a ceiling of support. The second is whether, even if he does, any of his remaining rivals can unify enough of the voters resistant to him to beat him.

So far the evidence suggests the answers are: maybe, and not yet. Indeed over the first three contests, Trump’s two principal remaining opponents have shown mirror-image weaknesses. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has assembled a coalition of support that is too narrow; Florida Senator Marco Rubio is building a coalition that is too shallow.

As in his New Hampshire win earlier this month, Trump’s support in South Carolina transcended many of the usual fissures in Republican politics, according to exit poll results posted by CNN. The one big exception remained education: In each of the first three contests, including the Iowa caucus, Trump has not run as well among voters with a college degree as with those lacking advanced education. But because those white-collar voters have fragmented among many choices, none of Trump’s rivals is consolidating enough of them to overcome the New Yorker’s dominant position among voters without a college degree. The simple equation that Trump has consolidated blue-collar Republicans while the party’s white collar wing remains divided remains the most powerful dynamic in the race, even as Trump has failed to exceed 35 percent of the vote in any of the initial contests.

More.

But actually, I like this passage from this last weekend's Los Angeles Times:

...two factors could conspire to give Trump the nomination.

First, his challengers continue to find reasons to remain in the race, and the longer the field remains crowded, the harder it is for any one of them to attract more voters than Trump in a given state. In fact, one of Rubio’s main arguments is that “the longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to be,” and therefore he is the candidate who can unify the party. A Bush aide said he dropped out in part to help the party unite behind an alternative.

Trump himself mocked pundits for saying his opponents’ votes combined could defeat him if some of them drop out.

“These geniuses,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “They don’t understand that as people drop out, I’m going to get a lot of those votes also. You don’t just add them together.”

Second, polls show an increasing number of Republicans have become comfortable with Trump leading the party’s ticket in the November general election. In the Fox poll, 74% of Republicans said they would be at least somewhat satisfied with Trump as president. That number was far smaller (43%) among all voters.

To beat back Trump, Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses, will need to pick up wins in a slew of Southern state primaries held March 1, and hope other contenders drop out. But the Texas senator ultimately will have to persuade more voters to embrace his pure form of conservatism and reject Trump as a phony, a case he has been trying to make for weeks.

“If you are conservative, this is where you belong,” Cruz told supporters Saturday. “Because only one strong conservative is in a position to win this race.”

Rubio, who may have been helped by his endorsement this week from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, has a different challenge. The Florida senator will have to begin winning states and hope that a majority of Republicans decide they want a more mainstream candidate, despite polls showing voters are looking to back those who have not served in government.

Rubio did well among GOP primary voters who said they wanted to vote for the best general election candidate, but only about 15% of South Carolina voters said that was a priority.

“If it is God’s will that we should win this election,” Rubio said Saturday night, “then history will say, on this night in South Carolina, we took the first step forward to the beginning of a new American century.”

Donald Trump to Hold Campaign Events in Las Vegas Today (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Donald Trump's Momentum (VIDEO)."

At KTNV News 13 Las Vegas:

Donald Trump's Momentum (VIDEO)

At the New York Post, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump leads polls in 10 of next 14 voting states."

And at the New York Times, "Donald Trump's Victory Spurs Renewed Scrambling Among Republicans."

The Party of Bush Yields to a New Face (VIDEO)

Heh.

"Yield" is putting it nicely. Jebbie got the freakin' boot!

At the New York Times, "The Party of Bush Yields, Warily, to a New Face: Donald Trump":

In his emotional seven-minute farewell to a Republican Party that elevated his father and brother to the White House, there were two words that a choked-up Jeb Bush could not bring himself to utter: “Donald Trump.”

Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, had been soundly rejected by an electorate he no longer recognized, hobbling his campaign and leaving him little choice but to withdraw from the presidential race.

“The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken,” Mr. Bush said, holding back tears. “And I really respect their decision.”

It was a stunning turn for the man who a year ago embodied all the qualities that his party’s elders imagined Republican voters wanted in a president: civility, experience, pedigree and tolerance.

They were wrong.

The party of Prescott Bush, George Bush and George W. Bush is, for the moment, the party of Donald J. Trump.

For the past year, party leaders who had pleaded with Mr. Bush to run and armed his campaign with a record-shattering war chest of $100 million had consoled themselves with assurances that Mr. Trump’s popularity in the polls would never translate into victory at the ballot box.

Mr. Trump, it turned out, knew their voters better than they did.

Mr. Trump’s commanding back-to-back primary wins in two disparate regions of the country have forcefully shaken the Republican firmament out of a prolonged state of self-denial.

“It’s an enormous moment,” said Steve Schmidt, a top Republican strategist on John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008 and George W Bush’s in 2004. Unless further rivals immediately quit the race, “it’s very difficult to see how he is stopped on his way to the nomination.”

Keep reading.

Bob Schieffer on the State of the GOP Race (VIDEO)

Schieffer's excellent home-spun political analysis.

Nothing to disagree with, frankly.

From this morning's "Face the Nation":

'Since the South Carolina contest moved up on the political calendar in 1980, no Republican has carried both New Hampshire and South Carolina and then failed to win the nomination...'

A great piece, from Susan Page, at USA Today, "First Take: History is now on Donald Trump's side."

Why Ted Cruz is South Carolina’s Biggest Loser (VIDEO)

Yeah, Cruz is not cruising to the nomination. He couldn't even win SC's evangelicals.

See Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Why Cruz is SC’s Biggest Loser":

There’s no question that the main story coming out of the South Carolina primary is another big win for Donald Trump. His double-digit margin over his nearest competitors was very much along the lines of his impressive victory in New Hampshire and looked to have won him all of the state’s delegates. Trump proved that nothing he could say — whether it was repeating far-left talking points about George W. Bush, endorsing the ObamaCare personal mandate or opposing entitlement reform — could alienate his supporters. With one third of GOP primary voters solidly in his pocket, it’s possible to argue that he has a clear path to the Republican nomination so long as he is facing two or more competitors in the remaining states, especially once most of the contests become winner-take-all affairs.

But if Trump is the big winner in South Carolina, Ted Cruz is the big loser....

Cruz’s assumption was that once other candidates that appealed to social conservatives like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum dropped out, he could count on a united evangelical vote. But what Trump showed us in South Carolina is that there is no such thing as a united bloc of religious conservatives. Or even of Tea Party voters that should, in theory, also be flocking to Cruz. What’s killing Cruz is that a lot of people who ought not to be voting for someone with Trump’s record are doing so. Cruz is right that he is the principled conservative that represents the beliefs of these voters. But they are still voting for Trump.

Trump may be hitting a ceiling at about one third of the vote. But that bloc is largely composed of the Tea Party and evangelicals that Cruz assumed would never stick with the frontrunner. If this pattern is repeated in the SEC states, Cruz will lose them. And once you get past that point in the calendar, the GOP race moves to northern, Midwestern and southern states where Cruz’s brand of conservatism has even less of a constituency. Trump may triumph there too, especially if Rubio is forced to compete with Kasich. But whatever happens in those states, the least likely outcome there would be victories for Cruz...

More.

And ICYMI, "Donald Trump Wins South Carolina Primary (VIDEO)."

Donald Trump Wins South Carolina Primary (VIDEO)

He's practically cruising to the nomination at this point.

We'll see what happens in Nevada, but no matter. If he sweeps a majority of the contests on March 1st, Super Tuesday, it's a done deal.

At LAT, "Trump wins South Carolina primary; Cruz and Rubio battle for second as Bush quits the race":

Donald Trump rode a week of insults directed at a popular pope and a GOP president to trounce his opponents in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary Saturday, the most convincing evidence to date that his establishment-smashing campaign is on track to win the nomination.

None of Trump's rivals came close to knocking him off Saturday, despite – or perhaps because of – his position at the center of one of the most polarizing campaign weeks in recent history.

“There’s nothing easy about running for president, I can tell you,” Trump told a cheering crowd in Spartanburg, S.C., late Saturday. "It’s tough. It’s nasty. It’s mean. It’s vicious. It’s beautiful. When you win, it’s beautiful, and we are going to start winning for our country.”

On the other end of the spectrum was the night's biggest casualty, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who quit the race after months of limping along in Trump's shadow and as the target of much of Trump's derision.

"I'm proud of the campaign we've run," Bush told supporters. "But the people of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken."

With about one-third of the ballots counted, Trump had about 33% of the vote. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, also running as a party agitator, was running just barely ahead of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for second place.

Many figures in the party elite have viewed Rubio as the last man standing between traditional GOP values and the restive forces that have come to upend them in the 2016 campaign. So far, however, he has not won a contest.

Trump's victory was sweeping. He won among veterans and nonveterans, moderates and conservatives, evangelicals and nonevangelicals, women and men, according to the results of the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the Associated Press and the major television networks.

As he has throughout the campaign, Trump dominated the vote of Republicans without a college education and those with incomes below $100,000. College graduates were closely divided among backers of Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Those with incomes above $100,000 split their vote between Trump and Rubio, the exit poll indicated.

Almost the only significant demographic group that did not go for Trump were those who called themselves "very conservative," who sided with Cruz...

Still more.

And at Memeorandum.

Jeb Bush Quits 2016 Presidential Campaign (VIDEO)

Obviously, there's lots of news tonight, but this bit on Jeb Bush really rates, heh.

 At USA Today, "Jeb Bush drops out of Republican presidential race."

Our long national nightmare is over - #JebBush suspends presidential campaign. #SouthCarolina #SCPrimary #SouthCarolinaPrimary #GOPprimary

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 21, 2016

Polls Tighten on Eve of Heated South Carolina Republican Primary

It's going to be interesting.

If Donald Trump wins it'll be the beginning of a dash to the nomination. He'll have so much momentum he'll be unstoppable.

But the race is apparently tightening in the Palmetto State, so we'll see. We'll see.

At the New York Times, "Republicans Speed Across South Carolina as Race Tightens":

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — The Republican presidential candidates hurtled across South Carolina on Friday to make their final, frantic pitch one day before the state’s primary, as polls showed the race tightening here after a volatile and often nasty week of campaigning.

The vote on Saturday, a critical test of organization and strength for much of the field, comes as the candidates are closing in on Donald J. Trump, who until now has held comfortable leads in the polls here. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows Mr. Trump just five points ahead, down from his 16-point lead in the state a month ago.

The poll had Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in second with 23 percent, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, vying for third and fourth place, with 15 and 13 percent, respectively. Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio each had 9 percent.

As the Republican field winnows, nearly all of the remaining contenders need to deliver strong performances. A big victory by Mr. Trump would give him a jolt of momentum that could add a sheen of inevitability to his candidacy heading into the crucial March 1 contests, when 12 states vote, many of them in the South...

Keep reading.

Ted Cruz Overtakes Donald Trump in Latest Nationwide GOP Presidential Poll (VIDEO)

A huge deal is being made about this poll, but it's only 28 to 26 percent in favor of Ted Cruz, well within the margin of error. Besides, Quinnipiac's out with a new national survey as well, and Donald Trump's way out front, with a 2-1 lead. NBC/WSJ could be an outlier?

In any case, at NBC News, "Surprise: Trump Falls Behind Cruz in National NBC/WSJ Poll":

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has fallen behind Ted Cruz in the national GOP horserace, according to a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

In the poll, Cruz is the first choice of 28 percent of Republican primary voters, while Trump gets 26 percent. They're followed by Marco Rubio at 17 percent, John Kasich at 11 percent, Ben Carson at 10 percent and Jeb Bush at 4 percent.

The results from the poll — conducted after Trump's victory in New Hampshire and Saturday's GOP debate in South Carolina — are a significant reversal from last month, when Trump held a 13-point lead over Cruz, 33 percent to 20 percent.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart and his firm Hart Research Associates, says Trump's drop could signal being "right on top of a shift in the campaign."

"When you see a number this different, it means you might be right on top of a shift in the campaign. What you don't know yet is if the change is going to take place or if it is a momentary 'pause' before the numbers snap back into place," he said.

McInturff added, "So, one poll post-Saturday debate can only reflect there may have been a 'pause' as Republican voters take another look at Trump. This happened earlier this summer and he bounced back stronger. We will have to wait this time and see what voters decide."

This poll comes after other surveys -- both nationally and in South Carolina, the site of Saturday's next Republican contest -- show Trump with a commanding lead. But some of those weren't conducted entirely after the last debate like the NBC/WSJ poll.

Another possible explanation for Trump's decline in the new NBC/WSJ poll is an increase in "very conservative" Republican voters from January's sample...

More.

Also at Hot Air, "Whoa: WSJ/NBC national poll shows Cruz climbing past Trump to lead, 28/26: I want to believe. But I don’t."

Ted Cruz Porn Actress Amy Lindsay Says She's a 'Conservative Republican' (VIDEO)

Jake Tapper had the exclusive interview a little while ago.

Amy Lindsay, who starred in now-pulled Ted Cruz ad, considers herself a "conservative Republican," per @JakeTapper on @CNN. #TEDCRUZ

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 12, 2016

PREVIOUSLY: "Ted Cruz Pulls Campaign Advertisement Featuring Porn Star Amy Lindsay."