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BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN DONALD Trump has in the past eight months defied his critics and proven his White House bid is not simply a surreal stunt.
To the shock of the political world, the 69-year-old onetime reality TV star’s nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate is now a genuine possibility.
His populist campaign has morphed into a national protest movement against Washington elites and establishment “politicians.”
He has rallied fiscal and social conservatives as well as moderate Republicans who could propel him to the nomination — but the GOP trophy will depend on the behaviour of other party rivals still in the race.
The crowded field shrank by one after Saturday’s South Carolina primary slugfest, leaving five: Trump, Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and two underdogs — Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Trump has a solid support base of about 30-35% of the Republican vote: He won New Hampshire with 35% and South Carolina with 32.5%. In national polls, he is averaging about 34% support.
So long as the remaining votes are divided between other candidates, as occurred in the first three nomination contests, Trump appears unbeatable.
And from 15 March, most states will award their delegates via the winner-take-all method, which would help Trump clinch the nomination before the Republican convention in July in Cleveland.
But if several others withdraw — as Jeb Bush, the son of one president and brother of another, did Saturday after faring poorly in South Carolina — voters could in theory elevate a challenger capable of uniting the Republican electorate against Trump.
“I do think Trump has a ceiling, probably around 40%, and that he’s not going to do much better than that,” explained University of Massachusetts political science professor Brian Schaffner, who also directs the UMass Poll.
Trump might snag some voters from Carson, who is popular with evangelicals, should the doctor drop out, and he is likely to earn trickles of support from Bush and others who suspend their campaigns.
But Schaffner has studied surveys about voters’ second, third and fourth choices, and has concluded that it’s pretty black or white on Trump.
“Most of the people who don’t support him really have no interest in supporting him,” and the majority of those who had backed Bush or Kasich — symbols of the establishment — would switch allegiance to either Cruz or Rubio, he explained.
‘A three-person race’
Trump has no patience or use for the calculations of such “geniuses,” and who can blame him? He has defied expectations daily since last summer.
“They don’t understand that as people drop out,” Trump said Saturday night,
“I’m going to get a lot of those votes also.”
Indeed, voters are hardly beholden to the prognostications of political experts. They may be more sensitive to personality traits than political platforms.
Trump’s undisputable talent “is to keep the focus on him” and not necessarily his policies, generic as they are, said Timothy Hagle, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa.
America’s political left has essentially anointed Trump a bona fide frontrunner.
“Nothing is certain in politics,” wrote Josh Marshall, editor of web-based Talking Points Memo.
But it’s time to dispense with any faith-based logic that disputes the fact that Donald Trump is now the overwhelming favourite to win the Republican nomination.
Cruz, a champion of the religious right, is struggling to reach voters beyond his arch-conservative core, but he is determined to hang on.
Rubio nipped Cruz for second place on Saturday in South Carolina, consolidating his position as the mainstream darling.
“After tonight, this has become a three-person race, and we will win the nomination!” Rubio told cheering supporters.
There are indeed some obstacles in Trump’s path, notably involving his campaign organisation.
“Can he expand his campaign to more than one state at a time?” Hagle asked.
Eleven states across the country will cast ballots in Republican nominating contests on Super Tuesday (1 March), and Trump’s campaign team has fewer staff and volunteers — and less ground experience — than his well-stocked rivals.
There is also the scenario in which Trump, Cruz and Rubio remain in the race until the July convention, with none having managed to secure an absolute majority of delegates — 1,237 out of the 2,472 available.
Should that unfold, after a first round of voting, delegates would be released from their initial commitments and could vote for the candidate of their choosing in the second round.
Woe to whoever predicts the outcome in that scenario.
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Bring it on, my arm is waiting…
@David Dineen: need to start deferring the second dose out in order to get ahead of this. Has worked for both Israel and the UK.
@Derdaly: it works well for AZ but not so much for Pfizer, according to recent data from the UK. Since we’re giving Pfizer to the most vulnerable/exposed it makes sense to maximize their protection by giving two doses at the correct interval.
@Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty: it’s not a competition between vaccines. It still offers huge benefits from a single dose as we have already seen here. Canadians have tried it with gaps up to 16 weeks without any negative impact. Even doubling the gap to 8 weeks would protect so many more people while supplies ramp up. Irish approach is way too conservative and lacks any sense of urgency.
GO ON PFIZER YA GOOD THING!!
Totally misleading headline. So the news here is that we are getting an extra 100k doses over 3 months. So an extra 7000 doses a week. Hardly life changing in fairness
@Declan John Power: might recover some of the shortfall in recent weeks but not nearly enough. They’ve made a hames of it so far in fairness. Whatever happened to nailing it down to avoid any further mutations?
@Declan John Power: life changing for the50k people who will get them. Don’t be such a negative nelly. It’s better than AZ constantly saying that there are delays
@Declan John Power: thats 7000 less people to catch the virus per week, potentially 140 less cases requiring hospitalisation and maybe 14 less patients in ICU and perhaps 2 less deaths…. certainly IS life changing!!
@Declan John Power: ok so let’s
forget about the overall 2.2 doses of Pfizer, the 600,000 doses of 1 jab j&j vaccines etc coming in the second quarter , enough to to vaccinate nearly 1.6 m people and instead let’s focus on the negative
@Adrian O’Donnell: what would you have done differently if you were Taoiseach/Minister/HSE?
@Siomoin O Rian: Negative Nelly…love that! 7000 more people a week than we thought.
@Declan John Power: Fair point on the actual number but unfortunate use of the life-changing phrase.
At least it’s an increase as opposed to the continuous under supply from the AZ shower.
Good news!
@Declan John Power: the small print often killed a great headline
Our gombeen leaders would rather our people die than buy the Sputnik V vaccine.
Micheal Martin wouldn’t dare offend Biden or vonderLeyen.
We have replaced British rule by becoming a corporate vassal state.
@roscommonrebel: not everything the Russians do is a conspiracy because Russia is a huge country with a huge number of talented scientists.
However, there’s still a big question with no obvious answer: why is Russia exporting all of these vaccines before it has even a *reasonable* proportion of its own population vaccinated?
You would genuinely get the impression that Russia is MORE interested in exporting the vaccine, than protecting its own population.
Obviously it could just be for expanding their sphere of influence, which is the position everyone seems to assume. But that’s a REALLY large price for Russia to pay for it.
@Gerard: Tell that to the 9 million Stalin ‘Sacrificed’. Russia’s track record is remarkable in that regard and they remain very calculated with their global influence agenda comrades !
That said, if it works and is available, I for one would welcome it if it speeds up our pathway back to some kind of normality.
@Gerard: interesting
@Gerard: Making money for the oligarchs who control these companies is more important than the lives of the Russian people. We should not buy the Sputnik vaccine.
@Gerard: I think you will find that Russia is making the vaccine in other countries rather than exporting. I have no idea of volumes made where but over 1billion vaccines are on order and being produced in India, Brazil, China, South Korea, Hungary, and I read that Italy is also to produce the vaccine. Only about 5% of the vaccine produced in Russia is exported. Makes interesting reading https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_V_COVID-19_vaccine
@roscommonrebel: this is the same Russia that is poisoning its political opponents?
@Bill O’Cearbhaill: ah lad, come on now…. Get your head out of YouTube and go out for a walk
I see this as just another attempt to try and assuage the incandescent European public who can’t quite believe how incredibly absurd the EU have been in relation to pausing the AZ roll out and their pitiful procurement of supplies.
@Robert Clifford: EU didn’t pause AZ
@Robert Clifford: you’re starting to come across as the kind of guy that spends a lot of time shaking his fist at the sky…
@Pseud O’Nym: Not today. What a day!!!!
Why is there no discussion about the lack Moderna vaccines coming into the country.Moderna has only provided 3.2% of the total amount so far .According to the app that’s just 19,000 of the over 600,000 doses distributed.Thats a tiny amount for 3 months since it was approved.There was a photoshoot with Stephen Donnally taking in the first 10,000 in January and we have only received 9000 since then.Surely this is a bigger supply issue than what’s happening with astrazeneca but I have seen no coverage of this anywhere
2.2 million, Just tell astrazeneca to go scratch like new Zealand and only use Pfizer vaccine, we are small country we don’t need 10 different vaccines
@Hugo Bugo: there is no scientific basis for your suggestion.
@Hugo Bugo: that would be fine but we have paid 2/3 of the price up front to cover research and development as did other countries who signed contracts last year. If we cancel the contract on the basis of failed delivery then the only refund we get is the uo front money left, which is probably none. No vaccine company would have developed a vaccine without advanve sales and deposits. If we tell the EU we do not want to draw down our allotted vaccines from one company then the EU is unlikely to divert any to us from another supplier. The AZ contract is available on line to review is I got anything wrong.
It’s 110,000 extra over the next 3 months and 2.2 million in total. Very misleading headline, sure isn’t that they way of the world ..
If you take all the ifs, buts, maybes, ” and my understanding is” out of the equation, the position seems to be as follows:
We’re going to get something sometime. It will be effective to a certain extent and will last an unknown amount of time.
When all the over 70’s are vaccinated the risk of mortality has decreased enormously so I presume the lockdown will end then? Ah only joking, this is Ireland, where nobody will be allowed move until everyone in the world has been vaccinated
Is this on top of the 46,500 announced last week? Could The Journal actually do some journalism?
@Ned Gerblansky: ah Ned get your heAd out of your beHind, wake up and smell the coffee. Or not…all the one to me. Only offering good insight to the sleeping masses
Awwww, 110,0000…..how cute
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