Trump on the Crowd Melees

The big takeaway from Donald Trump's press conference tonight was his push for Marco Rubio to get out of the race. But the most interesting part of the night was when CNN's Jim Acosta asked him if was going to take responsibility for or do something about the recurrent outbreaks of (so far low-level) violence at his rallies.

It got kind of a hairy few a few moments. And I thought it was 50-50 whether Trump would have security toss Acosta from the event or maybe have one of the guys from Duck Dynasty knock him around a bit. But I don't think either ended up happening.

It was a classic Trump answer, with several digressions and laugh lines - along with a few side points that were completely incomprehensible (see the reference to ten years ago). My favorite part was when he seemed to suggest that on a percentage basis barely anyone gets beaten up at his events. But I wanted to quote the whole exchange at length. So here it is after the jump ...

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Picture Clarifies

Trump wins in Louisiana and Kentucky - but only by middle single digit margins over Ted Cruz. So two wins each for Cruz and Trump, though the caucus factor helped Cruz a lot. The big takeaway from Trump's speech is repeatedly saying he thinks Rubio should drop out.

This May Not Be Over

All the networks have called Louisiana. But the margin keeps shrinking. It was over 20 points at the start. But the margin is now down to 6 points - with just under 50% of precincts reporting. A key point here is that the early Trump lead included a lot absentee ballots - which by definition were older votes. None of the networks has retracted their call. But it seems like it will at least be much closer than it first seemed.

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Caucuses vs Primaries

Here's something to keep in mind about the results tonight. The frontrunners - Trump and Clinton - are having a lukewarm night. Sanders and Cruz have both already won two states. But Clinton has already been declared the winner in Louisiana and the early results at least suggest a big win for Trump too (Late Update: Louisiana has now been called for Trump.)

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Cruz Crushes It in Maine

We have final results for Maine. Cruz (45.9%) wins convincingly. Trump (32.6%) 2nd. Kasich (12.2%) 3rd and Rubio (8%) 4th. Rubio was the only candidate to fail to surmount the 10% threshold and is shut out for delegates.

One thing to note is that all the votes for those four combined were just over 17,000 people. So small state combined with a caucus. So just a tiny number of people voting. But those are the rules.

Cruz on Top

We're still early. But the main outstanding question seems to be whether Ted Cruz has a solid night or an amazing night. Cruz has already won the Kansas Caucus. He's ahead by around 7 points in Maine, both with only just over 9% of the precincts reporting. In Kentucky, the only remotely recent poll showed Trump with 35%, Rubio 22% and Cruz at 15%. That was a little over a week ago. But almost 20% in, it's Trump 42%, Cruz 31%. Rubio and Kasich far behind in the low teens. Polls close in Louisiana at 9 PM eastern.

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Some Pictures Tell a Million Words

When it comes time to write the book on the Trump campaign, you won't need to write a book. Because we already have this picture.

This is Steve Travers, who stood behind Trump at the rally today in Tampa, with a full body "Trump Wall" suit with the lettering "Mexico Will Pay."

This Is Getting Brutal

At a certain point you have to wonder what they did. Because at this point it seem like God is just f 'ing with the GOP. Like pulling wings off a fly. As you can see in the live election results data to the right, Ted Cruz looks like close to a lock to win the Kansas caucus. Only 25% of the precincts have reported so far. But he's had roughly 50% of the tally consistently all the way so far. Unless the distribution of the returns is wildly uneven it's hard to see how he doesn't win. (So far no returns appear to be in from greater Kansas City metro region.) That will be Cruz's fifth win so far. And it does not seem improbable at all that he could win at least one more. (Just as I typed this, the first 5% of precinct results came in from Maine. He's winning there too.)

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Requiem For IE

I haven't done it in a long time. But over the years, I've posted charts or non-graphical updates on what kinds of browsers and operating systems people use to access TPM. So for instance, way back in January 2010 (amazingly, that's 6 years ago), our browser breakdown was like this.

Firefox: 39.82% Internet Explorer 29.10% Safari 21.83% Chrome 7.17%

Today it is ...

Chrome 39.41%

Safari 28.8%

Safari (in-app) 12.48%

Firefox 10.97%

Internet Explorer 5.32%

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Yup, #NeverTrump Is an Epic Fraud

I wrote last night that the already trembly #NeverTrump 'movement' would soon collapse under the weight of its own ridiculousness. And that is even more clear this afternoon. Mitt Romney appears to be the only actual member of the #NeverTrump 'movement'. Small movement. Sad!

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The Rot is Deep

Like I said last night, #NeverTrump is really #EventuallyTrump. In a Kentucky radio interview today, Marco Rubio is forced to admit that #NeverTrump actually only applies for the primaries. Audio here.

True

TPM Reader CS ...

Having listened to (much) of the debate last night and read your commentary, I am struck by the fact that we seem to have become perfectly comfortable with moderators that are actively, openly, and aggressively trying to undermine a single candidate.

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A Thought

It's a bit hard to judge since CPAC or any conference would be hard pressed to command much media attention in the face of the current implosion of the GOP. But it's hard not to sense that the diminished prominence of CPAC this year is not part of the more general crack up of the current GOP coalition, elites and establishment versus voters, changing definitions of conservatism, different gatekeepers, etc.

Republicans Debate. A Total Mess. Sad!

My take on Thursday night's GOP debate.

Readers Advance Study of The Trump Attack Haiku

After TPM's pioneering work identifying the new metrical form of the Trump attack haiku, readers came through with a more extensive examination of Trump's work ...

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