Given continued coverage of Marco Rubio’s claim that his poor performance in Saturday’s debate caused his fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire Republican primary, we wanted to put some data behind the point -– that the exit poll just doesn’t back him up. We’ve got two ways to look at […] Read more »
We Thought Marco Rubio Lost The Debate, But New Hampshire Might Think Differently
We here at FiveThirtyEight endorse the conventional wisdom, for a change. Like most other people covering the event, we thought that Marco Rubio had a really bad night in Saturday’s Republican debate, that the three Republican governors (Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich) had a pretty good night, and […] Read more »
Polls contradict Marco Rubio on public support for a change in status for illegal immigrants
Marco Rubio was grilled about his 2013 immigration bill during the ABC debate in New Hampshire, specifically about why he abandoned his own legislation. … Rubio replied: “We can’t get that legislation passed. The American people will not support doing anything about people that are in this country illegally until […] Read more »
What Would The Republican Race Look Like Without Trump?
If the debate in South Carolina two weeks ago represented the Republican primary in microcosm, this one was like a randomized control trial: What would the GOP primary look like without Donald Trump? CONT. Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight Read more »
Focus Group Reveals Their Big Winner of Tonight’s GOP Debate
According to a focus group of Iowa Republican voters, Marco Rubio was the big winner of tonight’s Fox News-Google GOP debate. The participants nearly unanimously agreed that the most powerful and impactful moment of the debate was when Rubio answered Megyn Kelly’s tough question on illegal immigration and amnesty. CONT. […] Read more »
Can Donald Trump actually be the Republican nominee?
… What was unthinkable a few months ago no longer is. Trump’s durability in national polls and his standing in the early states have forced GOP leaders — and all his rivals — to confront the possibility that the New York billionaire and reality TV star could end up leading […] Read more »