No, you just don’t want to admit that despite Trump’s boasts about his huge win to come in Iowa and the polls that claimed he would...it turned out the only real conservative who was the only candidate to oppose ethanol subsidies edged him out. The polls were off in New Hampshire having Trump down further than he was just as it failed on the second and third place predictions. You’re the fool if you don’t see the advantage Ted Cruz has in South Carolina and many other primary states with more evangelical voters than Iowa and a ground game that rivals what the republicans had in the 2004 election. Your blind support for a New York Democrat playing conservative will be forced back to reality. You’re side doesn’t seem to want to wait for the voters to speak instead preferring to trumpet his coronation. At any rate, I don’t really care if you downplay or underestimate Ted Cruz so long as when he carries the state, and others, you get behind the nominee.
Will Cruz do better in SC than he did in NH? Almost certainly... I have always said I think Cruz will do well in traditionally red states, but does that mean he’s going to win their primaries? I don’t see it, not as long as Trump is in the race.
You seem to think that the polls being off in IA signified something, it didn’t. IA polling is NOTORIOUSLY off every cycle. The caucus system by its very nature makes it nearly impossible for accurate polls, and for the outside type candidate to win, because its not a secret ballot situation, its a situation where you are going be publicly known to support this guy or that guy, and peer pressure is applied etc etc. I told anyone who was willing to listen that Trump was a long shot in IA, had he won IA that honestly would have signified the biggest upset that probably could be... he did very well there, better than he should have, which signifies far more depth and breadth to his general support than pundits are still willing to accept.
I also predicted, once the primaries moved to traditional voting places, the polls would be more reliable, and Trump would do better. And low and behold, Polls in NH were for the most part spot on, the one place they were off were on Rubio, mostly because they didn’t have time to poll after he gave himself a gun shot to the head in the debates.
SC Polls will also be pretty much spot on, and if they are, the expectation that Cruz is going to magically change the dynamic in the next 9 days is pretty wishful thinking, and emotion not logic. Trump is polling in SC at nearly twice Cruz’s numbers. Cruz will certainly do better in SC than he did in NH, but he’s not going to rise 16 or 17 points in the polls in a week, Trump in SC is running about the same as NH right now around mid 30s in the polls, Cruz is running high teens to twenty. Its 9:30pm on the 10th, polls open on 20th, so in effectively 9 days you honestly think Cruz is going to close and overtake that gap? Based on what?
The latest polling is post IA, any momentum gained from winning there has already gotten baked in... Trump will get momentum from his NH win, and none of that has even been captured in the polling. What events do you think are going to happen in the next few days that is going to swing the electorate in a major way?? A Debate? Trump isn’t Rubio, he’s not going to pull a political Bud Dwyer. An attack ad? What? What do you think is going to happen or that Ted Cruz has up his sleeve that is going to miraculously turn this tide in SC?
I am not saying this as someone who hates Cruz, I am saying this as someone looking at the dynamics of this race today. Yes SC has more evangelicals... but guess what? Trump won those in NH, so you can’t just say well the south has a lot of evangelicals so Cruz will win them all... that’s just stupid, and not backed up by anything. The only state, I am aware of, where Ted Cruz outpolls Trump right now, and I may be wrong, but the only one I know of is Texas, Cruz’s home state... and even there his lead is single digits.
This Cruz is the lead dog argument is a very silly one to make at this point.
Obviously time will tell, and if I am forced to eat crow, I will, but I am pretty sure when the votes get tallied in SC, Trump will be on top with a pretty sizable lead. Cruz will do better than he did in NH, no argument about that, but he’s not going to unseat Trump.... Time will tell if I am right.