Momentum

Trump Winning the Racist Endorsements
Trump continues to earn the backing of the most racist and xenophobic political figures out there. After scoring big wins from Liberty University's Jerry Falwell Jr. and Maine's controversial governor Paul Le Page, Trump has now scored back-to-back "wins" of KKK leader and former presidential candidate David Duke and the French equivalent and former leader of the National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen. It is considered unusual for foreign politicians to get involved in American elections, so the last one is a bit of a coup.

Super Tuesday Updates
Several new polls have come out for Super Tuesday races, and most of them are basically in line with the estimates I gave in the last post. However, this is an election where seeing polls swinging 10% in both directions is considered normal variation. There are some swings in both directions, but there's nothing that surprises me. Of course, this is an election where refined polls and the eventual results only bear a superficial resemblance to each other, so I'm just reporting, not predicting.

Clinton Beats the Spread in South Carolina
Hillary Clinton won decisively in the South Carolina primary yesterday. This win, by itself, should not be news even worth mentioning. Every poll and gut check said that a Clinton loss there would be virtually impossible. What is big news, is that Clinton won by 73.5% to 26%, creating a huge margin that is more than double the spread that was expected. Exit polls show that she won almost every group across age, race, gender and income, leaving Sanders only his stereotypical base of 18-24 year olds and white males. Minorities turned out in record numbers to support her. In Sander's own words "We got decimated." This indicates that the entire South is likely out of play for Sanders, with delegate margins even worse than his campaign was planning for. While it is too early to call this one event "The End of Bernie" (which, yes, many political commentators are wont to do), he will have to beat the current margins on Super Tuesday, or drastically change his strategy. We have two days before we find out.

Super Tuesday

Republican Civil War
I'm hearing a lot of hype about how Trump will "sweep Super Tuesday" or how he could become "the unstoppable nominee" after March 1. Cries of how Trump "has no ceiling" after Nevada, as if fulfilling what we have been seeing since Iowa is somehow shocking. True, no one has managed to take him down yet. However, no one has seriously even tried (parting shots of doomed candidates not withstanding).

The reality is that Trump's support continues to hover at a steady 33-35% nationally, where it has been since the middle of December. The race for the other 64% has been VERY dynamic, however, and may be starting to coalesce into two other candidates in time for the real fight over the primaries. As I wrote before, in order to avoid a brokered convention, Trump would need to at least cross that 40% national support line, which remains out of reach. When we break down the Super Tuesday states, using state-wide polls and the proportional allocation rules of each state, we see this prophesy is being fulfilled.

Due to proportional allocation rules, Trump gets about 43% of the delegates, well shy of the 50% he needs to avoid a potentially nasty fight on July 18th in Cleveland.

There is a lot of assumptions put into this delegate assumption (including how congressional districts split and whether pollsters have any business predicting primary elections), but it gives a good estimate of what we might expect March 1st. However, there are a number of edge cases here that are within the sampling errors of these polls (and well within the de facto margins of error). The delegates are awarded proportionally among the candidates who meet the minimum threshold. If you don't meet 20% in Georgia, you get nothing. Some things to keep an eye on:

• If Trump comes in 4% lower in Alabama, that could be a major blow as he would no longer qualify for "winner-takes-all" at 50%. If Rubio gets gets half of that, Trump would lose 22 delegates to be split among Rubio and Cruz.
• Cruz is close to the threshold in Georgia, potentially costing him 20 delegates.
• Rubio is close to the threshold in Alaska, Tennessee, Vermont, and the very important Texas. This could cost him as much as 75 delegates. That's half of his expected winnings on Tuesday. He needs to make a serious play for Bush's supporters, and some of Kasich's. If you live in one of these states, expect to see ads for Rubio popping up everywhere.

Democrats Get To Vote, Too!

For all of you Democrats out there, you may not realize it from the media coverage, but your party votes on March 1st as well. Like every comparison between the Democratic and Republican primaries, it just isn't nearly as exciting as a three-way battle for the heart and soul and future of the party leading to a possible floor fight at the convention. Sadly, adults conducting business in a respectful manner simply isn't as interesting as grown-up kids throwing temper tantrums. C-SPAN could never compete with Toddlers in Tiaras.

For what it's worth, here's the breakdown on the Donkey Race:

Clinton is expected to win, pretty much across the board on Super Tuesday, racking up 2/3 of the available delegates for a net gain of nearly 200. The only cliffhangers are:

• Will Clinton manage to get past the 15% threshold in Vermont?
• Which states will the pollsters get horribly wrong?