Trump Triumphs; Kasich Surprises; Rubio Stumbles
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Donald J. Trump, the brash, blunt New York billionaire who campaigned on a simple boast — “I will make America great again” — won a yuge victory in the first presidential primary of 2016, sending the Republican Party into a cold sweat.
The soonest relief can arrive for the reeling GOP establishment is Feb. 20, the date of the South Carolina primary — except that Trump’s lead in the polls there is as formidable as it was here. Although he outperformed his pre-election polls, Trump’s victory was not a surprise. He has led all Republican contenders in the polls nationally since July 20 and had been ahead in New Hampshire since July 28, when he passed Jeb Bush for good.
In the week since Trump finished second to Ted Cruz in last week’s Iowa caucuses, the campaign here in the Granite State had a surreal component to it: Trump’s rivals essentially conceded that their goal was to finish in second place.
That dubious honor went to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who finished with nearly 16 percent of the vote, followed by Cruz and Bush, who fought hard for third, with the Texas senator pulling slightly ahead, separated by about 1,900 votes. But the vote totals for the second- and third-place finishers put together didn’t come close to Trump’s tally.
“We are going now to South Carolina!” a triumphant Trump told his supporters here, who broke into the familiar “USA!” chant. “We are going to win in South Carolina.”
Marco Rubio, Florida’s junior senator and Bush’s onetime protégé, finished in fifth place, suggesting there is room for only one of the Miami frenemies in this race. Bush sent a message Tuesday night that he intends to be the last Floridian standing.
Surrogates for each man suggested that the other withdraw from the field of battle.
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said that Bush should drop out in the cause of defeating Trump. The Rubio team pointed out how much money Bush had spent in New Hampshire, how he’d once held the lead there, and how he’d predicted victory.
Meanwhile, Bush’s top aides and supporters maintained that Rubio is mortally wounded in the race for president, and that Bush is heading to turf familiar to the Bush clan. "I don’t think Marco can prove to the people of South Carolina that he is better prepared to be president than Jeb Bush,” Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters. “The best is yet to come for Jeb Bush.”
Bush’s team has been developing its case against Kasich in recent days, in particular his support for defense cuts and his move to expand Medicaid in Ohio. Both issues, Bush’s team believes, will sink Kasich in more conservative South Carolina, and neither was fully fleshed out in New Hampshire. Bush’s campaign will also make an appeal to pragmatism, arguing that his campaign is better equipped than Kasich’s for the long haul, both in terms of fundraising and infrastructure.
“This campaign is not dead; we’re going on to South Carolina,” Bush said. Ignoring Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich — and taking aim at Trump — Bush added, “We need a president with a steady hand, with a proven record, who has a servant’s heart, who doesn’t believe it’s all about him.”
For his part, a defiant Rubio declared himself to be all-in, too. He manfully accepted blame for his disappointing finish, which came after his disastrous Saturday night debate performance when he got flustered by Chris Christie’s aggressive attacks. “That’s on me,” he told his supporters. “I did not do well on Saturday night so listen to this: That will never happen again.”
Christie himself ran sixth, almost surely ending his bid. He left his stamp on the race, however. His public mugging of Rubio knocked the surging 44-year-old senator off his game, but it didn’t help Christie — he tallied only 8 percent of the vote — and left the Christie campaign struggling for a rationale for why he should continue.
In talking to his supporters Tuesday night, Christie stopped short of quitting the contest, but his remarks had a clear tone of nostalgia.
“I have both won elections that I was supposed to lose and I’ve lost elections I was supposed to win,” he said. “What that means is you never know — and it’s both the magic and the mystery of politics.”
He said he was going home to New Jersey to ponder his next move.
Bringing up the rear in the eight-person field were Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, neither of whom has held public office. Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon and evangelical author well known in conservative Christian circles, has never even been associated with elective politics. Carson may stay in a while longer, but apparently in the capacity of a man on a book tour — which he is — instead of as a viable conservative option.
Kasich and his supporters, by contrast, were euphoric. “There’s magic in the air with this campaign,” he told his supporters. “We never went negative because we have more good to sell.”
In one sense, Kasich’s emergence from the pack was New Hampshire’s most interesting development. Objectively speaking, he may be the most qualified candidate on the Republican side. He’s in his second term as governor of Ohio, perhaps the GOP’s most crucial state, and is a former congressman who helped balance the federal books in Washington when he was chairman of the House Budget Committee.
At times, Kasich sounded like he was running for office as a 1960s Democrat — a Jack Kennedy Democrat — and he even quipped that maybe he should be running in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary. But his message resonates with a significant slice of working-class Republicans and crossover independents. He also talks about the obligation of his party to the poor and working class, using arguments that are both practical and faith-based.
“If you think about the American home, which is the family, we know the family is only strong when the foundation is strong,” he said. “That's why we will wake up every single day to make sure that every American has a job in the United States of America to help their families and their neighbors.”
Kasich’s record as governor underscores this optimistic message. Under his stewardship, Ohio accepted the Medicaid expansion component of Obamacare, a step few of his fellow Republican governors took. Conservatives support the private sector not to make it cozy for employers, he says, but because private enterprise is the key to job creation and middle-class prosperity.
Nonetheless, Kasich’s path to the nomination would not be easy. He spent most of his money here, benefited from an open primary, has little infrastructure anywhere other than Ohio, and possesses a quirky personality and odd-duck manner that might not travel well.
Cruz tried to build on the momentum of his Iowa caucuses win as he heads into the more friendly territory of South Carolina.
“Together, we have done what the pundits and the media said could not be done,” he said. “And what the Washington establishment desperately hoped would not be done."
Trump could say the same. He travels anywhere he wants to go, in his own private jet, of course, figuratively and literally soaring above gaffes and goofs that would sink a lesser man — or a man with a lesser ego. Trump joked about this himself, boasting in Sioux City, Iowa, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
Trump didn’t go that far, but he did invoke nonsensical biblical references, espouse patently unconstitutional public policy proscriptions, feud with Fox News, ridicule his GOP opponents for their physical characteristics, call Mexican immigrants “rapists,” mock a New York Times reporter’s physical disability, single out Muslims for quarantine, and sneer at John McCain’s war record — all while bragging incessantly about his poll numbers and personal wealth.
To that litany can now be added: And won the 2016 New Hampshire primary handily.
The thrice-married candidate seemed to believe that his appeal is based on his willingness to poke political correctness in the nose and his hard-headed stance against illegal immigrants. But there is more to it, just as there was more to Bernie Sanders’ rout of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary than Clinton’s shortcomings as a candidate.
For the GOP establishment, Tuesday’s results represent a nightmare come true: a strong and energized Trump, cruising ahead of the field without having yet tapped into his unlimited personal resources, with the rest of the field muddled — and beating the bejesus out of each other — with the prospect of a long primary fight ahead.
Ellie Potter, Caitlin Huey-Burns, and James Arkin contributed to this story.
