New Hampshire, South Carolina and now Nevada: the evidence is mounting that Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee. Those who doubt a Trump victory believe that Republican voters will at some point come to their senses, while others see a narrowing field as one that favors Trump’s competition. […] Read more »
The Trump-Sanders Fantasy
The emergence of strong populist insurgencies in both parties has raised the hope that the two constituencies could be joined to create a genuine left-right populist alliance. There are compelling arguments for and against this proposition. CONT. Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times Read more »
How ‘Values Voters’ Became ‘Nostalgia Voters’
The South Carolina Republican primary results present long-time observers of white evangelical Protestants’ political behavior with a conundrum. How did Donald Trump—a twice-divorced, casino-owning New Yorker who curses during campaign speeches and is prone to church-related gaffes such as accidentally putting cash into the communion plate—win in this southern state […] Read more »
Class Differences Fuel Trump Support in South Carolina
… On paper, Newberry County, should be good territory for social conservative candidates seeking the GOP nomination because it holds a large evangelical Christian population that identify as “values voters.” But as voters head to the polls in South Carolina, it’s New York businessman Donald Trump who holds a sizable […] Read more »
‘Unfavorable’ Signs for Ted Cruz in South Carolina
The Ted Cruz campaign has made it very clear how it believes its candidate can win the nomination: by unifying the party’s ideologically consistent and self-described “very conservative” base with the somewhat more populist, evangelical voters who make up the party’s rank and file in the South. … The relatively […] Read more »
Trump and Sanders Give Voice to the Voiceless
… Sanders and Trump are rising largely because they are amplifying the voices of constituencies that have usually been outshouted in fights for their party’s nomination. For Trump, that key constituency is working-class Republicans; for Sanders, it’s the Millennial generation. By demonstrating—and crystallizing—these groups’ electoral clout, each man is signaling […] Read more »