The winnowing has officially begun! What was once--and really, still is-- a huge republican field has finally started to narrow down after the Iowa caucus. The Kentucky senator officially dropped out of the race on Wednesday, January 3rd. His campaign has been struggling since the beginning, though. Rand Paul sells a libertarian slant on conservatism, but unfortunately, the public just wasn't buying it. Though he was predicted to fare better than his father, Senator Ron Paul, who ran in 2008 and 2012 with similar libertarian bids, Rand failed to accumulate enough funds and support from both big donors and individuals. In fact, polls show that his support hasn't been past the single digits since last May. Of course, it's hard to gather support in such an overcrowded field, but Paul really struggled with shouting over the insidious voice of Trump. Though his father was second in the 2012 New Hampshire primary with 23% of the vote, the younger Paul has been predicted to only inspire 3%. Along with serious funding issues, he had no choice but to withdraw. His particular branch of conservatism was, unfortunately, not enough to build on the grassroots base that his father established. Instead, Republicans are favoring more traditionally conservative candidates like Cruz and Rubio (and, of course, wild cards like Trump). In debates, Paul had been floundering, once being snubbed and boycotting the event, and then failing to make much of an impact when he was finally restored on stage. The Twitter Q&A that he hosted instead of the debate actually did generate some interest in him, but apparently it was far from enough. In the end, Rand Paul won only 4.5% of the vote in the Iowa caucus, far too small to realistically stay in the campaign. Paul is the third candidate to pull out of the race, with Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Martin O'Malley retiring their campaigns as well. Luckily for Paul and his supporters, his "fight is not over". Now, he will focus on reelection in the Senate to ensure that his libertarian voice is heard.
So, who do you think will be the next to go? If Trump loses the primaries, will he drop out? How narrow do you think the field will become? Will it be the traditional one-on-one, or will the massive Republican field shake things up?
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-great-winnowing-begins-as-rand-paul-drops-out-of-race/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/rand-paul-dropping-out-of-white-house-race-218675
13 comments:
Knowing Donald Trump's ruthless attitude, I think his exit from the presidential race for candidacy will not be an immediate occurrence. Although he lost the Iowa caucus to Cruz and if say he loses the primaries, I believe that he is so full of himself he will still persevere. However I do believe that if the circumstance becomes that he is significantly trailing behind, he will eventually drop out. That being said, the field will become slightly narrow. Despite the large amount of Republican candidates still running, it is only a matter of time until they begin to leave the race. As we have seen in previous presidential candidacies, there comes a time when the candidates realize dropping out will be inevitable for their case. I don't think it will be a one on one race but rather three prominent Republican candidates remaining. However this is still a narrow field for the Republican party, due to this, the race to win the Republican nomination is more aggressive than ever.
Sarah
I have a feeling Trump will be a part of a national media narrative right up until November. Even if he's still not actively in the race, he will still be making headlines. I have a feeling he will be on the ballot on Election Day -- in one form or another. The four candidates we can expect to see through the final primaries are Cruz, Trump, Rubio, and Bush (he probably won't realize he should just quit). I suspect over the next 3/4 weeks we will see candidates such as Kasich, Carson, and Christie begin to drop out of the race as the upper echelon of GOP candidates begins to solidify. Both sides will have competitive races until the final primaries. It's going to make for a great national spectacle, and should dominate headlines over the coming months.
I agree with Caroline that despite Trump falling short in Iowa, there is absolutely no way that he will be dropping out anytime soon. I think he is in this race for the long haul and will continue his campaign until the nominee is finalized. I don't blame him either because he has received such a broad and passionate base of support all over the country. Unlike Rand Paul, he has more than sufficient funding, so money will not be a problem. Rick Santorum will be the third Republican candidate to drop out of the race due to an unsatisfactory performance in Iowa. I foresee smaller candidates such as Jim Gilmore and Carly Fiorina dropping out soon due to lack of support. I also think that the results of the New Hampshire primary may bring some more dropouts especially by those who expect to perform well such as Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush. I think that the pool will definitely narrow because candidates polling in the single digits have to weigh the costs of spending so much money on an essentially losing battle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/03/rick-santorum-to-drop-out-of-2016-presidential-race/
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/poll_who_will_be_the_first_republican_candidate_to.html
Because of Trump's high poll numbers throughout the country, I think it is very unlikely that he will perform poorly at any of the primaries or caucuses. Eventually, I believe that the Republican field will narrow down to him, Cruz, Carson, Rubio, Kasich, and potentially even Bush, and considering the large ideological differences between each of these candidates, it will be interesting to see who finally wins the GOP nomination.
To start, I'm still not even sure if Jim Gilmore is running. Each time I look at the polls or the results of the Iowa Republican Caucuses I see his name mentioned, but I have never seen him at one of the debates. Considering the fact that he earned 0% of the vote at the Iowa Caucuses, I believe that he will soon exit the race, with the suspension of his campaign being as insignificant as its beginning.
Chris Christie will probably wait until after the New Hampshire primary to end his campaign, because although he earned 0% of the vote in the Iowa Caucuses, he clings to the belief that he will have more success on the East Coast. He thinks that being a moderate will help him in the first primary state, but his standing at 4% in the New Hampshire polls indicates otherwise. He continues to trail candidates like Trump and Rubio by a wide margin, largely because the fiscally conservative views of these two candidates appeal to a multitude of New Hampshire residents. Kasich is encountering a similar problem, having much more support in NH (10%) than in Iowa but still significantly less than the frontrunners. Ultimately, however, I believe that Kasich will stick around for the long haul, as he is an island of centrism in a sea of conservatism.
And then, of course, there's poor old Jeb. In a last ditch effort, Jebby is probably going to pour as many funds as possible into his campaign with the hope of reviving it (That is what he has been doing up until now, at least). Unfortunately, he just can't throw money at his problems, and as soon as his enormous cash flow ends so will his campaign. Until then, I just hope that he won't have to ask any more of his audiences to clap for him.
Sources:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iowa%20democratic%20caucus&eob=m.03s0w/R/2/short/m.03s0w/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/04/politics/new-hampshire-republican-cnn-wmur-poll/
In response to El KittyCat, Jeb Bush has already spent so much money that I would be shocked if he keeps it up much longer. He and his PACs raising 155.6 million dollars, 96.7 million of which he's already spent. To put that in perspective, Jeb Bush spent about $2,800 per vote and he still came in sixth in Iowa. For another take, his money could have funded the campaigns of Fiorina, Paul, Kasich, Carson, Trump, Gilmore, and Santorum combined. . (NowThis Election). Normally, I would write a bit about how he could still come back, except recently Bush had to ask an audience to clap at one of his campaign stops (You can watch the incredibly painful video below, I'll link it.)
After these caucuses, I doubt many more Republicans will be staying in the race. Chris Christie will drop out after New Hampshire, especially if he doesn't do well. Even if he does do well, I don't think it's likely he'll do well in South Carolina. Carson, despite being fourth in the Iowa caucus, I think will drop out soon as well. He's consistently behind Trump, Cruz, and Rubio and the likelihood he will move ahead of them is small. I think we will see many campaigns ending in the next few months.
I definitely do not see Trump dropping out, regardless if he wins the Republican nomination or not. I could see him registering as an Independent and running there. If that did happen, I would be interested if he would create a large split or not in the Republican party.
Basically, the next few months are going to see a lot of important people fall on their faces.
Painful Video of Jeb:
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisElection/videos/vb.908009612563863/107483629638496/?type=2&theater
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisElection/videos/vb.908009612563863/1024429720931757/?type=2&theater
I don’t see Trump dropping out at all during the race. He has been high in the polls for so long now that there is no way his standing can drop so much as to cause him to drop out. In addition, he doesn’t suffer the lack of funding that others such as Rand Paul face. He has plenty of money to keep him on the table. Winning second in the Iowa caucus, though it may be disappointing to him after seeing himself lead in the national polls, is still a huge feat and means he has a good chance at winning. I believe the three prominent Republican candidates remaining will be Cruz, Trump and Rubio—there’s no way that the race will be a traditional one-on-one with so many players still in the game. The rest will slowly begin to drop out, more so after the results of the New Hampshire primary. I’m not sure who the first one to go will be, but there’s no way Fiorina, Kasich, Christie, or Gilmore can completely overturn the results of the Iowa caucus.
Poor Rand Paul. In my opinion he was the voice of reason of the Republican debates and certainly the most rational, honest candidate on stage. He was sort of the Bernie Sanders of the right, wanting sweeping change while taking very little for the establishment. As the winnowing continues, I expect Christie to drop next; his debate performance last time was dedicated almost solely to ruthlessly attacking the increasingly conservative Rubio, not to mention the barrage that has been levied against Christie on social media concerning the credit score of New Jersey ever since he was elected. I still hold out hope that Kasich's extensive ground-game in New Hampshire will pay off- he is predicted to end in the top three in current polls. Otherwise I fear that Trump or Cruz will run away with the nomination.
Rand Paul dropping out this early was somewhat surprising given the fact that he placed 5th in Iowa, and he usually enjoys success in New Hampshire. However, I think a large part of this decision was his realization that his support comes from a very niche support group in the Republican party. His views conflict with those of both parties in certain areas. As for who the next candidate it will be to drop out, Gilmore, Santorum, Huckabee, and Kasich. Candidates such as Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie all seem to stubborn to be included in this group and have shown no signs of stopping their campaigns. Eventually, the field will come down to Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Bush the latter of which will have no realistic shot of winning but instead just continues to waste his large campaign finances. However, the field will quickly start to thin out within the next two or three weeks as many more candidates come to the realization that their chances at the nomination are thin. Although there is still a lot of time left, there have been numerous debates and months of campaigning to get us down to three candidates with realistic chances, so I don’t expect that to change.
Brandcow is right, Rand Paul has a niche group of supporters. It is hard for someone like Paul to actually accumulate funding, which is mentioned in the post as his primary hurdle he failed to overcome. I believe it has something to do directly with his belief system. All the GOP frontrunners are Republican Nationalist, those who want to maintain the status quo with the size of government but desire traditional and conservative values at the core of government. The primary issue with Paul is that he is a total conservative with size and values, meaning that interest groups may have found him a threat. If the power of the Federal government was actually reduced, the influence upon those in DC would be less valuable because their legislative power is reduced. Basically, they could have support but less power to get what the group wants. That is why it also makes sense that people like Trump will be less likely to drop out of the race. Republican Nationalist still maintain a great amount of support from groups, while Libertarians tend to have grass-root support. However, since campaigns are becoming more and more expensive, chances of a legitimate candidate for libertarianism falls every election.
As you stated, Rand Paul never really found his footing, even from the beginning. This rough start is devastating to a campaign as voters will latch on to the front runners and almost completely forget about those trailing behind. What makes Rand Paul different was that he had a somewhat unique set of values that differ slightly from the straight conservative party. This, as 2CHAINZ said, create a small niche of voters that did support him, which is probably the reason he was able to stay even this long in the running.Rand Paul never was able to live up to his father's already mediocre legacy of elections. After this, we will start to see a huge amount of candidates dropping out of the race as the caucus's ans primaries begin. I believe that after New Hampshire, Christie will seriously have to consider dropping out as I predict he will not fair as well as he thinks he will there. Soon after that, I believe that the field will narrow to a very small margin of maybe four candidates, before eventually narrowing down to two or three. I don't see Trump, Cruz, Rubio, or even Bush dropping out before a significant fight. I do not believe this will ever turn into a one on one, just based on how stubborn some of the candidates are.
I agree with Caroline that Trump will not be dropping out of the race any time soon. He is too much in love with all the media attention that he is getting and have good suspicion that he believes in the idea that “any press is good press” because of many of his outrageous and contradictory statements on sensitive issues. Even if Trump loses the primaries I wouldn’t be surprised if he continued his campaign as an independent despite his promises to the Republican Party to not do this. It’s hard to predict who will drop out next due to the field being so large but I would say the results of the New Hampshire primary will weed out a good handful of candidates. Individuals who were in the single digits for the Iowa Caucus and continue this trend in New Hampshire I think will accept their losses. For instance, Chris Christy said that although he only got 1.8% of votes in Iowa is hoping for better results in New Hampshire. If he does not receive more support I believe he will drop out and will be accompanied by Huckabee and potentially even Kasich and Fiorina, all of whom received less than 2% of the Iowa votes. As for how narrow the field will become, I believe that it will not reach the traditional one-to-one. If I had to predict, I would say Trump, either Cruz or Rubio, and maybe even Bush will continue to the final rounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/2016-presidential-candidates.html?_r=0
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/rand-paul-dropping-out-of-white-house-race-218675
I am not surprised that Rand Paul has dropped out of the Presidential Race. He has not stood out in this race, especially against extremely opinionated candidates such as Trump and Cruz. Trump and Cruz are two men who have voiced their opinions from the start of the presidential race. For example, Trump has made it known to everyone that he wants to, "Make America Great Again" if he were to be elected President of the United States. He also said that he wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and put all of the Muslims throughout the country into a large "database" system. Because he has made this surprising statements, the attention is drawn toward him and therefore it was difficult for Rand Paul to stand out. That being said, I definitely do not think that Trump will drop out of the race. I agree with mia's statement in how Trump is too obsessed with all the media attention that he has been receiving that he doesn't want the "spotlight" to be taken away from him.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/2016-presidential-candidates.html?_r=0
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