The polls were wrong about the Iowa caucuses and in a string of crucial elections around the world in recent years. Which means anyone counting on them being right about New Hampshire hasn’t been paying attention. But whether we are surprised about what the results will be tonight or not, it doesn’t seem as if the state will be performing its customary duty of culling the still large field of Republican candidates. In particular, barring some real surprises, there seems to be little chance that the pileup in the so-called establishment lane of the GOP will be resolved. The anticipated decline of Marco Rubio after his bad debate performance, the rise of John Kasich, the persistence of Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie’s belief in his right to continue punching away may well mean that all four will go on to South Carolina tomorrow. If so, that’s very bad news for those who were hoping after Iowa that there could be a chance for the party to ultimately nominate someone not named Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
New Hampshire was supposed to be a clarifying moment for the Republicans as the centrist wing of the party sought to determine its standard bearer in what was perceived to be the moderate primary within the primary. But it’s possible that those of us who thought this contest would define the outlines of the party’s first tier were wrong from the start. With large numbers of independents voting today in a GOP primary, their participation seems likely to tell us little about which of the candidates truly have a viable chance for the nomination in the rest of the country where, for the most part, crossovers are not a factor.
Independents are assumed to be a major source of support for Trump as his appeal to white working class Democrats has created a bizarre situation where the billionaire is actually competing for the affections of some voters who might otherwise be tempted to back socialist Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. But it also seems likely that Kasich, whose pitch to the center has been geared toward New Hampshire centrists, is going to be a major beneficiary of the same trend. A second or third place finish for Kasich seems a strong possibility, especially if the Rubio gaffe turns out to have seriously damaged him. If Bush and Christie turn out to be not far behind, that makes it possible that all four members of the bickering establishment quartet will continue in the race as it heads to South Carolina.
If that happens, pundits will blame Rubio’s feedback loop in Saturday’s night debate for costing him a chance to knock off his competition and to solidify his place in a three-man race for the nomination with Trump and Cruz in which he might have been thought a favorite. But while the debate may be one of the great missed opportunities of 2016, the continued confusion may have another explanation. As much as we are not wrong to focus on the way the debate might have changed things, the fact remains that the determination of all four of these candidates to keep running under almost any circumstances may be more important than any one moment.
In an earlier era before SuperPACs made it easier for candidates to raise the vast sums needed to keep campaigns running even when they might be well advised to stop, the talk of only three or four “tickets” out of New Hampshire for Republicans would have been an ironclad rule. But the notion of these “tickets” is an artifice created by reporters and columnists to help make it easier for them to create a narrative about New Hampshire that allowed for a decisive outcome. In reality, so long as any and all of these candidates have the cash to go on to South Carolina, Nevada and beyond, that’s exactly what they will do.
Kasich and Christie have gambled everything on New Hampshire while Rubio and Bush were running national campaigns. But even if Christie’s release of his South Carolina appearance schedule is a bluff, it’s increasingly hard to imagine the New Jersey governor giving up no matter how low he finishes. Kasich’s surge in the last week makes it likely he’ll go on too. We also know Bush has the money to keep going indefinitely. Unless one of them runs away from the pack — as Rubio was though to be able to do and which Kasich now dreams of — nothing short of a disastrous result in which one of them is far behind the other three will likely be enough to convince a candidate to drop out.
That will be entertaining and make subsequent debates even more highly anticipated television shows. But the math about the GOP contest remains the same no matter how the four are sorted out after tonight. With Trump having an ironclad grip on about 25 percent of Republican voters and Cruz having cleared the field of some of his competitors for religious conservative and Tea Party voters, the reality is that there still isn’t room for more than one moderate/establishment candidate in the first tier of the GOP race.
All four have clear liabilities with Rubio’s shortcomings now more apparent after last Saturday. One can always say anything is possible, but the notion of someone who has veered as far to the center as Kasich having any traction among Republicans after New Hampshire seems far-fetched. So, too, are the hopes of Bush and Christie to catch fire. But even if we are prepared to treat each of their best-case scenarios as theoretically possible, there is no hope for any of them while the others are still in it. So long as the group is still battling it out and bashing each other relentlessly, the only ones to profit from this scrum will be Trump and Cruz. The only thing this circular firing squad may have accomplished in New Hampshire is to ensure that someone they all oppose will wind up being the nominee as the GOP race heads south and west to states where conservatives and outliers will have the advantage. The establishment pileup may wind up totaling all four.
