Super Tuesday 2016 is behind us, and it seems as if Donald Trump is well on his way to the Republican nomination. The unconventional nature of the Trump candidacy has driven this 2016 campaign to a threshold, and it may very well signal the end of a true separation between entertainment and politics. Trump’s strategy, fusing his celebrity image with strong political rhetoric akin to George Wallace, has won him at least Super Tuesday and may win him much more.
The road from here is much less certain, but Tuesday’s election did give us a few lessons. And if one thing is for sure, we are bound to have less Ben Carson from here on out. Ted Cruz was able to score big victories in Texas, Alaska and Oklahoma, but does he have the firepower to beat Trump outside of the fundamentalist Midwest?
Marco Rubio had a rough night, winning only Minnesota and losing by three points to Trump in Virginia. Conventional wisdom had said that Marco Rubio is the best establishment candidate to take down Trump, but all of a sudden the Rubio campaign looks weak. He’s getting further and further behind in delegate counts and polling behind Trump in his home state of Florida.
With less than two weeks until the Florida primary and a few state contests in between, the Rubio campaign is likely out of time to make a move. The Cruz campaign, on the other hand, might be out of moves. With Texas and Oklahoma behind him, Ted Cruz faces an uphill battle to win over more moderate voters in the upcoming states. Losing to Trump across the Southeast has put a low ceiling on the Cruz campaign, and Trump’s closest competitor in the polls might just be out of gas.
To read between the lines of my preceding paragraphs, Trump’s two sources of strongest resistance were dealt a heavy blow Tuesday night. An easy path has been paved for the most unconventional major party presidential nominee of the 21st century. From here on out, it is tough to say what will happen. What are the rules when Rome falls?
To quote my editor, Griffin Hobson, “The 2016 Dumpster Fire will burn on.”