Super Toosday

Trump had a big night and it will take a big effort on the part of the rest of the GOP to stop him.  However, there are some numerical things that still put that within grasp.  I was on my way home from Colorado listening to ABC and I had to chuckle.  Not one number was ever stated. This harkened back to my days as a physics professor.  We used to say that journalism majors were allergic to math.  Thus they must hire guys like Karl Rove to tell them what the numbers mean. 

            Here’s a few numeric gleanings I humbly submit. First, Trump significantly underperforms his polls.  He did this in their first 4 “weird” contests and it continued Super Tuesday.  Here are six states whose returns were almost concluded by the time I went to bed compared with the Real Clear Politics polls released over the weekend.

State    RCPpoll    Election result   Trump    Cruz

OK     34%T-18C    34C-28T             -6            +16

TX     35C-32T        42C-28T            -4              +10

VA      40T-22C       34T-29C            -6            +7

AL      42T-16C       44T-21C            +2            +5

GA     39T-15C       39T-23C            0               +8

TN      44T-22C      40T-24C            -4              +10

 

Trump underperforms his polling.  (Indies? Low information voters? Poor GOTV? Crappy polls?) while Cruz definitely overperforms.  Media has been primed all week with the big story about Trump’s tremendous win, but it looks more like just a frontrunner’s margin.  Delegates in most states, as far as I can compare, have a statewide proportional pot and Congressional district pots.  And pots have a threshold of 15% or 20%.  That should divvy up delegates quite a bit.  Cruz “won” (oh, how the media loves that term!) 3 states and clearly is doing a far better campaign at getting  out the vote.  My listening to voters here in Okieland indicates that for every supporter that Trump gets, he gets at least another voter who hates him. This is a winnable campaign for someone else with good GOTV. Trump’s still under 44% everywhere. Ted got 42-43% of Texas. 

            My opinion from the beginning of this campaign (when I researched a white paper on stances and policies of all 17 candidates) is that Trump has no substance behind his bombastic statements, uses character assassination of competitors, and is untruthful.  (what we used to call a flim-flam used car salesman with crazy hair and yellow plaid pants) I long for the day when more voters want substance, debate monitors hold Trump to talk about his strategic plans, and other candidates answer similar questions, thereby looking presidential and full of hope.

            Go Ted!

            Say, why do they call it the SEC primary?  I see TX,OK,CO, WY.  Shouldn’t it be the Big 12 primary or the High Plains Primary. “I tell ya, we don’t get no respect!”