How did these elevations occur? A lot of people doubted one or the other possibility, even after early victories by these two contenders for the US Presidency.
Trump's Path to Ascendancy
Naysayers in the Republican party doubted, and liberals feared, Trump's chances from the very beginning. That he had a strong and devoted following was never contested. However, he had what was an apparently firm ceiling of 30-35% support among likely voters. Surely, thought his legion opponents, the party would eventually coalesce behind an establishment candidate and send this reality-TV star packing.
But this did not happen. And, really, by the time that this need to stop Trump became truly obvious, there were not many establishment candidates left. After the Iowa caucus, people looked to Jeb Bush and his uninspired campaign to stop the push for an outsider. But Jeb's number's hadn't left single digit support since the previous fall. For all the money that he had spent (over $100 million), Jeb had generated very little support. If you were one of Jeb's supporters before he left the race last week, you should feel flattered. He probably spent thousands of dollars just on you.
Besides Jeb. there was only Rubio, the junior senator from Florida. Cruz, Carson and Kasich could hardly be called establishment candidates and they each had a non-trivial portion of the republican vote. Cruz had even won Iowa, though there remain questions about the accuracy of the results from that caucus.
The establishment never had a chance. The truth is that there are not and never were going to be enough votes for any of the establishment candidates. The people supporting Cruz, Kasich and Carson were themselves troubling signs of cracks in the GOP foundation. Trump's ascendancy is due to the flood pouring in through those cracks.
High Hillary
For a while, it looked like Sanders really had some momentum. Even a cynical old bastard like me, who would never vote for a man who backed down so cowardly in the face of an interrupting BLM protest, was moved by his America campaign ad.
There was one major problem with the ad. It was super-white. I noticed this right away but I assumed that Clinton would have a hard time motivating black voters this time around. She did not. She certainly is not generating Obama levels of black voter participation but she is getting more than enough apparently. And this voting bloc was not enthused about Sanders' message. Like other democratic voting blocs, they wanted to know what politicians are going to give them specifically and Sanders' union background and free college offer was not considered relevant enough to black Americans, if the statements of leaders like John Lewis are representative.
So we head into Super Tuesday with several candidates holding on to slim hopes for a last-minute surprise. However, Trump and Clinton appear to be riding juggernauts toward a November showdown.
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