Summary
We are wrapping things up now, so here are some final takeaways from today’s vote in South Carolina…
- After a victory of stunning magnitude, 74%-26%, Hillary Clinton is evidently looking past Bernie Sanders and to the general election in November.
- There, she is looking directly at Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner who seems to have a lock on the nomination despite what was reported on Saturday to be a frantic behind-the-scenes effort to unseat him.
- In her speech in Columbia, South Carolina, Clinton took aim at Trump with an effective rhetorical one-two, and indeed three-four. “We don’t need to make America again,” she said, referring to the billionaire’s oft-baseball-capped slogan. “America’s never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls we need to be breaking barriers.” We can expect that line to feature again and again on the stump.
- Updated exit polls, meanwhile, showed the mountain Bernie Sanders now has to climb. According to the Associated Press: “Clinton won a large majority of black voters, most women and voters 25 and older. She was backed by both highly educated voters and those without a college degree, by those with high household incomes and the less affluent. Bernie Sanders was supported by voters under 25 and those who identified themselves as independent.”
- As he indicated in a brief statement from the steps of his plane on his arrival in Minnesota, Sanders, who left South Carolina early in the day to campaign in Texas, must now find some success on Super Tuesday, particularly in the southern states. He must also make sure of those northern or more traditionally Democratic states where he might expect to do well. Momentum is with Hillary.
This was also a busy day in the Republican race, of course. From that we learned:
- Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have made good, basically, on their promise to release their tax returns. Donald Trump has not yet followed suit. The insults are still flying.
- Donald Trump and his endorser-in-chief, Chris Christie, have not yet perfected their campaign-trail chemistry.
And finally…
Updated
In Rochester, Minnesota, Bernie Sanders came on stage to the sound of Neil Young, and then didn’t mention South Carolina at all…
Bernie Sanders spent most of Saturday acting as if South Carolina didn’t exist. His first public appearance after news of his thumping loss to Hillary Clinton was no different.
Speaking to 2,600 supporters in Rochester, Minnesota, he came across a little more subdued than the fiery orator we had seen in Texas in the afternoon. But it had been a long day in more ways than one.
In a none-too-subtle sign that he plans to fight hard for a dozen more states on Super Tuesday, Sanders came on stage to the sound of Neil Young singing: “Keep on rockin’ in the free world.”
Perhaps, I was imagining it, but the only slight change to the standard stump speech that followed was a fraction more reticence when it came to bashing his Democratic opponent in public.
“Let me take a brief moment to outline some of the differences between ours and Secretary Clinton’s campaign,” he told the Rochester crowd, almost apologetically, before reeling off a truncated version of his standard attacks on her Wall Street links.
There is a palpable sense in the campaign now that even if it carries on through to this summer’s convention, Clinton is likely to be the nominee that all Democrats rely on to beat Donald Trump come November.
While some candidates might be expected to go more negative after a night like tonight, this progressive champion will not want to be remembered as the man who guided Trump toward the chinks in Clinton’s armour.
Listening to Bernie Sanders’ speech in Minnesota, John Stoehr finds that Hillary Clinton has adopted many of his themes – and stolen the wind from his sails.
Political insurgents are most powerful when the establishment resists the insurgency. If Hillary Clinton had been more resistant to Bernie Sanders’ populist appeal, if she had been less flexible, Sanders might be better positioned today than he is. But she wasn’t.
Months before primary season began, Clinton was slowly adopting many of Sanders’ positions – even his anti-Wall Street stance. At the same time, she has made it clear what the differences between them are. This has been most obvious with her new message of America not being a single-issue country.
All of this means Sanders message of economic justice – as inspiring and uplifting as it may be – is sounding even narrower than it already was. As the primaries come and go, Clinton’s message is likely to sound broader, more varied and richer. Sanders’ message isn’t.
Lucia Graves writes from Columbia, South Carolina, on a key victory for the Clinton campaign…
Hillary Clinton led with a promise to help poor minority children in the so-called “corridor of shame”, a stretch of dilapidated schools along South Carolina’s I-95 corridor. That was something President Obama made a benchmark of is 2008 campaign when he beat her in 44 of the state’s 46 counties.
Clinton is not making that mistake again – now it’s she who’s at the forefront of the issue. “This victory tonight is for the parents and teachers in South Carolina, they showed me crumbling classrooms”, Clinton said to cheers. And she promised the federal government would work with state actors to give children the “education they deserve”.
Here’s Lucia’s report on that issue.
And here’s more from tonight’s piece.
She also embraced her identity as a fighter, a role that she can inhabit with tremendous authenticity. “Let’s break down the barriers that sideline people in our country, especially women”, she said to a roaring crowd. “Don’t you think it’s time we had equal pay for equal work?”
You can read the full piece here:
100% of precincts in South Carolina have reported
…and the final vote tallies are:
Clinton: 271,367
Sanders: 95,840
In any language, or any state, that is a decisive win for Clinton.
Bernie Sanders speaks
“What this campaign is about is not just electing a president,” he begins. “It is about transforming America, it is about thinking big…”
Is this something more pointed after South Carolina?
Not really. He’s on to inequality. It’s stump, and the crowd like it, and it’s aimed at Republicans with “short-term amnesia” about what America was like when George W Bush left office, eight years ago.
Sanders points out the huge crowds he’s had: 10,000 in Austin and 8,000 in Dallas, he says of today. No mention of South Carolina yet, though he is moving on to “unpleasant truths”. Chief among these, however, is America’s corrupt campaign finance system, which is run by an oligarchy, a “handful of billionaires buying elections”. He then runs through his campaign standpoints, including protecting voting rights and securing a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and student debt, and battling sexism and racism.
But it does feel a bit like a fire that has failed to light; a bit like a rock band going through its greatest hits, to dutiful cheers and in the expected order.
He gets to the differences between his campaign and that of Secretary Clinton, which seem very stark this evening. The first is that he does not have a Super Pac. This, of course, we knew. And after a bit of call and response on average donation figures to his campaign – it’s $27 – he says: “With such a brilliant audience here, there is no way we’re going to lose Minnesota.”
Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters in Rochester, Minnesota
…and the livestream is here…
Hillary Clinton just enjoyed an invigorating victory, so you’d think her speech would have electricity and passion. John Stoehr, however, feels that it fell flat in a few places – even though she said all the right things. Do you agree?
No one ever said Hillary Clinton was an inspiring speaker. She wasn’t tonight, despite her huge success.
At one point, she read out the names of black Americans who died at the hands of police or otherwise in a system badly in need of reform. It was a moment that would otherwise be moving and powerful – but it ended up kind of flat. In fairness, Barack Obama is a hard act to follow.
She’s saying all the right things. To Democrats, anyway. And she’s building, rhetorically, on Obama’s repertoire.
“Breaking down the barriers”. “America’s best years are ahead”. “America has always been great”.
These are things Obama might say. And they still ring true today. And this new motif of the US not being a single-issue country: it’s a very smart answer to Bernie Sanders. She’s very smartly building a big tent.
But more subtly, in saying that we can stand together to break down barriers, she is saying that Democrats can’t do much if they are divided. No political party has ever won the presidency if the party was divided.
In winning South Carolina in a landslide, Clinton is poised to remind Democrats of that.
You may love Bernie Sanders. You may love his politics. But the battle ahead needs more than love.
Bernie speaks. Briefly.
Dan reports again from Air Sanders, or the steps off it, where Bernie Sanders delivered only a terse statement before disappearing into the Minnesota night:
In politics on a given night sometimes you win sometimes you lose, tonight we lost. I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her very strong victory. On Tuesday over 800 delegates are at stake and we intend to win many, many of them.
Meanwhile, Dan Roberts reports from the Sanders campaign plane, which has reached Minnesota…
Coming into land now. Really surreal silence from the front of the plane all flight – despite frantic waving from the press seats. When we heard the margin (double New Hampshire) a series of ‘wows’ at the back of the plane. Crickets up front. Going to see if we can ambush him on the tarmac when we land. Think they really don’t know what to say about it.
Updated
Ted Cruz releases his tax returns
The Texas senator has released nine years’ worth, not quite when he said he would – that was Friday – but still not that long after Marco Rubio released his and way before Donald Trump releases his, presuming he ever will.
A statement from The Cruzer – as I like to call him – reads thus:
It’s time for Trump to come clean and release his tax returns. If he’s not been completely honest or has supported the most radical left-wing groups in America, voters deserve to know.
Analysis of said returns no doubt on the way by the bucketload.
I, meanwhile, wonder what “radical left-wing groups” Cruz could be referring to. Maybe it’s the Woodcraft Folk. I hope it’s the Woodcraft Folk. For those who don’t know, the Woodcraft Folk is basically leftwing Boy Scouts, only for boys and girls. It also sprang out of a pacifist group called the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, or KKK, which is both awkward and by-the-by. I was a member, anyway.
Momentum can be an elusive thing. John Stoehr wonders: does Hillary Clinton finally have it?
The margin of victory for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina – the spread right now is more than 50 points – makes it look like she has all the momentum in the Democratic primary. But she already had Big Mo, even as she took a loss in New Hampshire.
Even as Bernie Sanders was winning there, he was losing. Gallup released a new national poll on Friday showing that Clinton’s favorability climbed during the New Hampshire primary. She now has a 55% favoribility rating. That’s a 10-point jump over the last Gallup poll, in January.
What’s going on? Most likely Clinton’s favoribility was suffering as some Democrats considered Sanders. But as the primary season has heated up, Democrats have looked past the Vermont senator and toward the general election. And with that, Clinton’s favorables have risen.
Expect that to increase, not too much but a little more, as the primary season comes to a head. And as Clinton consolidates her hold on the nomination, the argument that Sanders is the better opponent to Donald Trump will appear less and less prudent.
Updated
Megan Carpentier is in Minnesota, at a Hillary Clinton phone bank in St Paul…
Crowded in a conference room in the AFSME building in South St Paul, Megan writes, a group of Clinton phone bankers found themselves with some time on their hands after the AP called South Carolina for Hillary Clinton shortly after 6pm local time.
So they spent it grilling fellow phone-banker Jason Collins, a former Minnesota Timberwolves player who became the first NBA player to come out as gay, on everything from his shoe size (17) to how he survives commercial airline travel (politely asking fellow travelers not to recline their seats).
Collins, who attended Stanford University with Chelsea Clinton, had been stumping for her in several states and spent the day door-knocking and phone-banking for the candidate in Minnesota before heading for a flight home.
Meanwhile, with no nail-biting to do, the assembled volunteers for Clinton (who were not necessarily affiliated with the union), cracked some Diet Cokes, peeled a few clementines and watched Clinton’s victory speech on an old IBM laptop, cheering her line that “tomorrow this campaign goes national” and nodding along with their favorite policy positions.
But when she said “We don’t need to make America great again, America has never stopped being great” – a references to Donald Trump’s slogan – they all hollered.
And then they walked into the next room, sat down and continued the work of “getting out the caucus” by calling their fellow Minnesotans.
(After, of course, discussing how much they loved her speech.)
Updated
Ben Jacobs, ever-intrepid political reporter, has been with Ben Carson in Houston. In the rather sweary maelstrom of the Republican campaign, the mild-mannered and now consistently low-polling former neurosurgeon is still trying to maintain his dignity. It isn’t proving very easy. Ben writes:
In a campaign event at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Ben Carson used some of his strongest language yet about the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, albeit while still taking pains to avoid mentioning Donald Trump by name.
In a question and answer session, a voter asked Carson about “a systematic failure in the Republican Party … where Donald Trump is buying votes”.
Carson’s response: “‘Right now people are making decisions based on anger and fear and anyone who knows human nature can tell you that when you make decisions based on anger and fear they tend to be bad decisions.”
He continued: “The real question is are American people going to awaken and recognize what’s going on. I believe the answer to that yes. I do not believe that we are quite that dense … if we were to continue in the vein we are going in right now, yes we would make very very bad mistake.”
In a brief interview with the Guardian, Carson was careful not to mention Trump by name. He said he had meant “dense enough to base our decisions on fear and anger as opposed to evidence and fact”.
Carson also told the Guardian he felt confident about his prospects in the Super Tuesday primaries on 1 March. He said his campaign would do “as good as possible. I am looking forward to doing much better than recent polling”.
Carson is polling in fifth among the five remaining candidates for the Republican nomination. He is also struggling in polls of the 12 states holding Republican primaries on Super Tuesday.
What Donald Trump is up to tonight…
The Republican race is, of course, continuing, and Adam Gabbatt is with the Republican frontrunner in Memphis, Tennessee for a rally in an aircraft hangar.
“Trump’s plane taxied past the open hangar to huge cheers from the crowd,” Adam writes. “Dramatic music played as the door opened and Trump emerged with New Jersey governor Chris Christie.”
Here’s what happened earlier in the day at a similar event, after Christie’s introductory speech. It’s a bit awkward.
Undaunted, Adam continues:
The pair walked straight to a Trump-branded podium. After a brief introduction from Christie – most of it spent laying into Marco Rubio – Trump took the podium and launched into his now-familiar address.
He ticked off: Rubio’s alleged excess sweating, Mexico building a wall, his business being very successful, politicians being liars, China, and companies being forced to build things in America
At one point Trump, who is projected to win in Tennessee on Super Tuesday, talked about how he is portrayed as pugnacious and how his supporters are often seen as disenfranchised and furious.
“I’m not an angry person,” he said. “And you’re not angry people.”
In the crowd, the evidence suggested otherwise. A man holding up a sign which said “Make America hate again” was quickly rounded on.
As the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump”, a red-faced man snatched the sign and ripped it in half. The protester was ejected, with an accomplice.
An angry man just ripped up this protester's sign at Trump's event https://t.co/1WPyslXdnS
— Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) February 28, 2016
Before the event there had been the feeling of a funfair or a music festival. There were stalls selling Trump-themed tat, a line of portable toilets and a burger van offering Trump burgers: “100% American beef, 100% American cheese”.
Also available were “Bernie Sanders pork nachos” and a “Ted Cruz Canadian bacon burger”. Under the “Canadian burger” text was an admission: “We lied about the Canadian bacon.”
Hillary Clinton speaks in Columbia
And here she goes. She starts off, rather hoarse, with thanks and tells the crowd they have sent a message to America.
“When we stand together there is no barrier too big to break,” she says, before congratulating Bernie Sanders. “Tomorrow, this campaign goes national,” she adds, to cheers. “We’re not taking anything and anyone for granted.”
She calls Jim Clyburn, who joined her on the campaign trail, South Carolina’s champion in Congress and promises to work with him to carry on the work of President Obama. There’s also a shout-out for small donors…
“Today, grassroots donors are powering our campaign,” she says. This is the candidate who has taken shot after shot about her ties to Wall Street, remember, from an opponent and supporters of that opponent who have built their challenge on such small donations.
This victory is for parents and teachers, Clinton says, who in rural South Carolina showed her “crumbling classrooms and communities too long neglected”. It’s also for an entrepreneur, for women and people of colour and “particularly young people”. It’s a tick list of Democratic demographics, of course, but also of groups which have hitherto fuelled the Sanders insurgency.
And here’s a section directed across the divide, against Donald Trump: “We don’t need to make America again. America’s never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls we need to be breaking barriers.”
Clinton then moves to race.
“We have to face the reality of systemic racism,” she says, name-checking Dr King, Rosa Parks and John Lewis and calling for reform to the criminal justice system. She pays tribute to “five mothers brought together by tragedy”, the five mothers of black men and women who died at the hands of police officers or in cases with racial overtones who have campaigned with her in the state, and lists them all by name, and the circumstances of their children’s deaths.
And she talks about Flint, Michigan, the city subject to a lead-poisoning crisis in its drinking water after a government decision to cut costs.
“We know there are many other Flints out there,” she says, to a crowd now in a respectful silence.
She also appeals for “more love and kindness in America”. And that leads to a crescendo of rhetoric, and applause, and a wrap.
Updated
Lucia Graves is also in Columbia. She writes:
Forty minutes after the race was called for Clinton, Congressman Jim Clyburn took the stage at the University of South Carolina to chants of “Hillary!” and “Madam President.”
He began saying: “Today the Democratic voters of South Carolina have rendered a significant verdict.” And he thanked the voters for starting Clinton on her way to the White House. But he was interrupted by enthusiastic chanting.
“She’ll be here in a moment!” he said.
Moments later she walked on stage to roars.
Hillary Clinton speaks
Here’s the livestream
Updated
Guardian US contributor John Stoehr is impressed with Bernie Sanders’ magnanimity in defeat, but wonders when he will start to worry about his chances.
Bernie isn’t often credited with grace under fire, but he’s showing that tonight after South Carolina handed his behind to Hillary Clinton.
CBS News is projecting that Clinton will win by 75% to 25%.
In maintaining his poise, Sanders also rallied the troops, calling South Carolina only the beginning for his “political revolution”.
But the numbers are not in his favor, and he likely knows it. The states at stake in Super Tuesday are more like South Carolina in their percentage of minority voters than they are like Iowa and New Hampshire.
The battle was uphill for Bernie from the beginning and the hill is only getting steeper.
The moment the result was called…
Regarding Clinton’s huge, 84%-16% win among African American voters (according to exit polls), here’s what Jane Sanders, Bernie Sanders’ wife, told the Guardian on the campaign plane earlier:
I think we’re getting a lot better [at reaching African Americans voters], it’s just that they didn’t know us. They didn’t know us in the south generally.
That was filed by Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts. He’s now on that plane again, somewhere between Texas and Minnesota.
Lauren Gambino is at the Clinton victory party in South Carolina. She writes:
Clinton worked hard in the state, dedicating much of the past week to campaigning in churches, community halls and college campuses. She was joined by a major figure in the civil rights movement, Congressman James Clyburn, who famously refused to endorse a candidate in 2008, and other local politicians.
The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and other black men killed by police officers also campaigned for her in the state. At almost every event, she spoke forcefully about the women’s struggle.
Dan and Lauren’s full report is here:
Updated
More from AP on those South Carolina exit polls, about where Clinton won against Sanders:
Black voters powered Clinton to victory, with eight in 10 voting for her. The former secretary of state also won most women and voters aged 30 and older, according to early exit polls.
Meanwhile, in Trumpland… or whatever the online version of Trumpland is…
Trump has an endorsements page on his website now. It features Sarah Palin's name misspelled and one other person pic.twitter.com/SLUm1BYaTL
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2016
Marco Rubio may have a view to share on this latest spelling mishap for the Trump campaign. As the Republican candidates hurl insults at each other, the Florida senator has taken to saying Donald Trump’s tweets may be being typed out by illegal immigrants. It’s not Wildean repartee, is it, but it’s a start…
On Clinton’s appeal to black voters in South Carolina, the Associated Press says exit polls indicated eight in 10 black voters voted her way state-wide, or 84% to 16% for Sanders. Which ever way you look at that, that’s resounding.
Lauren sends video of the moment AP called the result, from inside Clinton HQ:
Updated
Clinton tweets
…with her own thumbs, like so:
To South Carolina, to the volunteers at the heart of our campaign, to the supporters who power it: thank you. -H pic.twitter.com/JFTUZ2yBxf
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 28, 2016
Sanders responds
Bernie Sanders, currently in the air on his way from Texas to Minnesota, has issued a statement on the result in South Carolina. Despite the defeat, he says: “This campaign is just beginning”.
Here it is in full:
I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victory in South Carolina.
I am very proud of the campaign we ran. I am grateful for the grassroots supporters who took on the political establishment and stood up for working families. I appreciate the many friendships that Jane and I have forged with people across South Carolina, where I was all but unknown when this campaign began 10 months ago. I will always be especially thankful for the courageous support of state representatives Terry Alexander, Justin Bamberg, Joe Neal, Wendell Gilliard, Cesar McKnight, Robert Williams and former Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian.
Let me be clear on one thing tonight. This campaign is just beginning. We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina. Now it’s on to Super Tuesday. In just three days, Democrats in 11 states will pick 10 times more pledged delegates on one day than were selected in the four early states so far in this campaign. Our grassroots political revolution is growing state by state, and we won’t stop now.
When we come together, and don’t let people like Donald Trump try to divide us, we can create an economy that works for all of us and not just the top 1%.
Lauren Gambino and Dan Roberts report on Clinton’s victory…
Lauren is in the room for the official Hillary Clinton victory party, in Columbia, South Carolina. She writes:
There was a delay in the room so the crowd only just learned she won the primary here. They counted from five to the close of polls at 7pm and then erupted in to applause, chanting “Hillary, Hillary!”
AP calls the win for Clinton
It’s here…
BREAKING: Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic primary in South Carolina. @AP race call at 7:00 p.m. EST. #Election2016 #APracecall
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 28, 2016
We’re closing in on the polls closing in South Carolina now, although as that Clinton campaign tweet said, those on line at 7pm will still get to vote.
Dan Roberts lets us know from Dallas, Texas, meanwhile, that Bernie Sanders is “wheels up” and on his way to Rochester, Minnesota.
Updated
Back on South Carolina, the Associated Press tweets…
The Latest: Early exit polls in the South Carolina Democratic primary contest suggest about 6 in 10 voters are black.
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 27, 2016
Sanders and Clinton’s contrasting appeal to African American voters have been at the heart of the South Carolina campaign, even leading to a rather undignified spat over the extent of Sanders’ involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
It’s generally held that Clinton will do much better with black voters today, and thus win the contest comfortably.
Here’s a tweet from the Clinton campaign in South Carolina…
If you're in line by 7pm, you can vote. Do not leave! Go to https://t.co/6l9Jgk1j5J to find your polling place. pic.twitter.com/KpnOs0FHzx
— Hillary for SC (@HillaryforSC) February 27, 2016
Massachusetts is a Super Tuesday state and there is a new poll out about it. In that poll, from Suffolk University and concerning the Republican field, Donald Trump leads Marco Rubio by a huge – yuge – 23 points, 43% to 20%. John Kasich is third with 17%, ahead of Ted Cruz, with 9%, and Ben Carson with his increasingly customary 4%.
Nick Gass of Politico points out the poll’s interesting findings on favourability:
Kasich is the best-liked candidate in Massachusetts, however, with a net positive rating of +39 points (60% favorable to 21% unfavorable), while Trump’s net favorability is at +22 points (56% to 34%) and Rubio’s is at +19 points (51% to 32%). Cruz’s favorability is underwater, at -11 points (37% favorable to 48% unfavorable).
According to the New York Times piece about the behind-the-scenes workings I cited earlier, Kasich’s plan is to win his own state, Ohio, collect the second-most delegates around the country, then get to the convention and work like crazy to wrest the nomination away from Trump. This, the piece says, is why he has not heeded calls to drop out, in order that Rubio might be able to concentrate on bringing down Trump.
Updated
Here’s Nate Silver again, polling expert de nos four-years-since-he-called-the-2012 -election-right. Silver, he say he suspects Clinton may not win by quite so much as 38 points, but will still, obviously, win…
"Polls-plus" forecast is even more aggressive, Clinton +38. Not sure I buy it but exit poll teasers good for her. https://t.co/7puioakcXa
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 27, 2016
Meanwhile, back on the Democratic side of things, Lauren is in Columbia and she has been talking to voters…
Name: Shakeena Clark
Residence: Colombia, SC
Age: 31
Job: 1st-grade teacher
Voted for: Bernie Sanders
“I like Bernie’s platform a whole lot more. It was between him and Hillary but he just stands for more what I stand for.”
Unlike many voters I spoke to, Clark said his civil rights activism impressed her. “I like that he marched on Washington with Martin Luther King. That shows he’s with us.”
Clark said she was really turned off by the way Clinton handled the furore over her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
“It was so bothersome the way she brushed it off,” she said. “Like, what else can’t you tell us?”
Clark said she’s been really disappointed with the rhetoric coming from Republicans.
“It’s kind of scary to see that people actually have those views from years ago and that people actually agree with some of the things that Donald Trump is saying,” she said. “To see him actually win primaries, to win South Carolina…”
She sighed and trailed off.
“It’s heartbreaking, actually.”
Our intrepid political reporter is with Ben Carson in Houston. Here’s Ben’s first-draft-of-history (Twitter, to ordinary people) reporting of what the good doctor is saying:
Carson: There are a lot of shysters. There have been snake oil salesmen as long as this country has been in existence.
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2016
Questioner for Carson expresses concern that with President Trump "Air Force One will be a bunch supermodels on jets"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2016
Ben Carson says he doesn't think Republicans will nominate Trump: "I do not believe that we are quite that dense"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2016
Carson says nominating Trump is a mistake: "If we are to continue in the vein were are going in right now we'll make very very bad mistake"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2016
Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has done what he said he would do in Thursday’s debate, and released his tax returns for the last five years. They are available for your perusal – perhaps with a brandy, by a roaring fire, with loved ones gathered about – here.
In 2012, Rubio’s most lucrative year thanks to royalties collected on two books, he paid 31% tax.
Actually, the senator has released only the first two pages of each 1040 form, not the full deal as released – eventually – by Mitt Romney in 2012 and by Hillary Clinton last year. (Romney, memorably, turned out to have paid a bit less than 31% on his billions.)
A campaign spokesman, meanwhile, told the Associated Press:
We’re putting these out today to put pressure on Trump and the other candidates to release theirs. To the extent there are additional questions about Marco, we won’t rule out providing more information in the future.
“To the extent that there are additional questions” sounds like a bit of a clumsy phrasing to me. Does that mean the campaign expects more questions? Is saying there will be? An “if” might not have gone amiss, perhaps.
Donald Trump, of course, has not released his tax returns either, as he says he is being audited. The whole thing boiled up in Thursday’s debate after Romney said Trump should release his tax returns, prompting Rubio and Ted Cruz to attack while proclaiming their own righteousness on the matter.
Cruz, by the by, has not yet released his tax records, despite saying he would do by Friday.
Here’s the full AP take on the story…
And here’s a perceptive tweet on the matter:
First thing I noticed: Rubio did not check the box for $3 to go to public financing of presidential elections
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) February 27, 2016
Updated
I probably shouldn’t point to other newspapers’ coverage too often on here, obviously, but the New York Times today has a tremendous and fascinating piece on the behind-the-scenes machinations going on in Republican circles as a Donald Trump nomination looms ever larger:
At least two campaigns have drafted plans to overtake Mr Trump in a brokered convention, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has laid out a plan that would have lawmakers break with Mr Trump explicitly in a general election.
Despite such deliciously House of Cards-tinged intrigue, the main takeaways are that no-one in those Republican circles really has much of a clue how to stop Trump without destroying the party, and Chris Christie’s endorsement of him on Friday has only made things worse…
Remember that photo from Dan Roberts of the turnout for Bernie Sanders in Dallas this evening, a couple of posts ago? You know, the usual: arena full-to-bursting, chants of “Turn Texas Blue”, probably some Woody Guthrie somewhere.
Well, this was the scene when Dan went to a Sanders rally in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday night:
Spot the difference.
Our Washington bureau chief is with Bernie Sanders in Texas, from where he filed this dispatch and video earlier. Contains added Woody Guthrie…
Despite leaving South Carolina with his tail between his legs this morning, Bernie Sanders quickly picked up the groove again in at a lunchtime rally in Austin.
This is still peak Bernie territory and the campaign estimates 10,000 people came to see him, a number that was hard to verify because so many were still queuing to get in when then speech started.
Radio commentator and warm-up act Jim Hightower reminded the crowd that this wasn’t just Austin, this was south Austin, where “we’re here because we’re not all there”.
Nonetheless, the sunshine and socialism was a much-needed tonic for the campaign which has low expectations in most of the south but is hopeful of running Clinton closer than pundits expect in Texas.
The rally finished with one of Bernie’s many musical staples, a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s folk classic This Land is Your Land, aided and abetted in this case by a duo called Folk Uke – featuring Amy Nelson, daughter of Willie Nelson, and Cathy Guthrie, granddaughter of Woody Guthrie.
Here, meanwhile, is what polling guru/ace/wizard/egghead/boffin/genius Nate Silver, over at fivethirtyeight.com, says about tonight’s result, which we’re expecting at 7pm ET or shortly thereafter:
According to our final polls-only forecast, Hillary Clinton has a greater than 99% chance of winning the South Carolina primary.
So there’s that.
Dan Roberts, our Washington bureau chief, is with Bernie Sanders in Dallas, which as I’ve pointed out already is, pointedly, not in South Carolina. Here’s the scene a short while ago:
Good evening, and welcome to our continuing live-wire coverage of the presidential election, which tonight has landed in the Palmetto State, South Carolina, for the Democratic primary.
Hillary Clinton is expected to win it, and handily. Don’t believe me? Ask Bernie Sanders, who flew out to Texas earlier on election day, there to concentrate on voters who will go to the polls on Super Tuesday.
Dan Roberts was on the plane with him, while Lauren Gambino is with Clinton. We’ll have updates from them, on a night which should emphasise the lasting hold the Clinton machine has on the south, and African American voters in particular. Megan Carpentier is attending a Clinton watch party in Minnesota, another Super Tuesday state.
Adam Gabbatt, meanwhile, is at a Donald Trump rally in Memphis, Tennessee. There may or may not be the usual unusual fireworks to come from there. Perhaps the candidate will address his latest endorsement, which came today from la belle France…
…and when you’ve caught your breath from that, here’s some more pre-primary reading:
Updated
