***Horse Race LiveWire*** One Day to Super Tuesday

pasted_image_at_2016_02_29_07_38_am_480

Welcome to Breitbart News’s daily live updates of the 2016 horse race.

8:05: Ivanka Trump’s video to Texans before Super Tuesday:

8:02: Massive haul for Sanders:

8:00: False promise when Rubio and his fanboys/girls, many of whom have said they would rather have Hillary Clinton in the White House, are supporting the “never Trump” movement:

7:50: Glenn Beck, who reportedly made fun of a woman’s miscarriage on air, Tweets this:

7:35: Sanders in Massachusetts:

7:15: Record early voting numbers in Georgia. Enthusiasm on GOP’s side:

A total of 417,491 early ballots — 391,090 in-person and 26,401 by mail-in absentee — were cast in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s presidential preference primaries.

This year’s early voter turnout broke the state’s previous record for early voting in advance of the presidential preference primary. It was set in 2008 with a total of 271,418 early votes.

Approximately 100,000 Georgians cast ballots Friday, the last day of in-person early voting.

[…]

The number of Republican ballots cast was 260,443 — 242,609 in-person and 17,834 by mail-in absentee. The number of Democratic ballots cast was 156,663 — 148,142 in-person and 8,521 by mail-in absentee.

6:43: Bernie Sanders Slams Hillary for paid speeches to Wall Street:

6:34: Good advance work by Trump campaign:

6:28: Rep. Marino (R-PA) endorses Trump:

6:25: Trump emphasizes that he is self-funding his campaign and is not beholden to anybody.

6:22: NASCAR FOR TRUMP! NASCAR CEO Brian France supports Trump in Georgia. Legend Bill Elliott and drivers Ryan Newman, David Ragan (pronounces name wrong), Chase Elliott also were on stage with Trump.

6:20: Cruz keeps pushing Trump on NYT transcripts but praises Sessions as “principled,” unlike the small-minded clowns/idiots who called him an “unprincipled coward.”

6:17: Bill Clinton Wants to go after “wrongdoers” as the State Department releases the last batch of Clinton’s emails that were on her private server:

6:13: Trump in Georgia:

6:09: Sanders optimistic about Texas:

6:08: Rubio Super PAC blasts Trump:

6:07: Strong argument from Cruz’s team:

5:35: Memo to “GOP smartset”: Keep mocking his English/Grammar. Spot-on analysis in The Week (Voters instinctively tune out politicians who speak “Politically Correct English”): 

As many critics gleefully point out, Trump is not very good with the English language. He certainly doesn’t speak like someone you would think of as a presidential candidate. It’s not just his Northeastern accent. He occasionally screws up with spelling and grammar.

Trump gets mocked a lot for this. Especially on Twitter, and especially by people like me — card-carrying members of the media elite. On Friday morning, Trump misspelled “honor” and “lightweight” on Twitter. The high priests of Manhattan media were almost beside themselves with delight.

So let me say this in a way you elites can understand: As David Foster Wallace explains in a brilliant essay on English usage, there isn’t just one “English.” As elite liberals are apt to understand in other contexts, what we call Standard English is really just one dialect of English — the English of rich, educated, largely white English speakers. There are many other dialects in English, associated with different regions, ethnicities, classes, and so on.

Trump speaks the language of his voters — unlike other presidential candidates, and unlike people who go on TV to be professional pundits. And what does Trump tell these voters? That the elite are against them. That they despise them. And what do elites do? Prove Trump right by sneering at a Trump trait that he shares with many of his voters.

Trump and his voters don’t speak Standard English, nor do they speak its cousin dialect, Politically Correct English. As Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum points out, many people dislike political correctness, not because they secretly harbor bigoted views, or because they have a principled belief in a culture of free inquiry, but simply because Politically Correct English is a foreign dialect, which changes frequently and unpredictably. And if you don’t always master its nuances, you might suffer withering social opprobrium. (You’re not exactly sure what gender to refer to Caitlyn Jenner as? You bigot!)

As the French thinker Pierre Bourdieu pointed out many decades ago, such systems of etiquette often function as ways for the ruling class to control the ruled, enforce class privilege, and keep the ladder to the upper class nice and slippery. And this particular form of social control only seems to be exercised against one type of person.

Trump connects with the white working class, with the socially downtrodden, with the frustrated and despairing, and with the poorly educated and financially struggling not in spite of his rough-edged manner of speaking, but because of it. The wealthy, urban elite ought to remember that before they turn Trump’s misspellings into a cocktail party punch line.

5:12: Sasse being praised by all the wrong people. Wehner has shown nothing but disdain for Tea Party conservatives:

5:10: Washington Post reporter on Secret Service incident:

5:07: Rubio cheerleader Rep. Gowdy (R-SC) predicts Trump blowout on Super Tuesday.

5:05: Silence when conservative journalists are attacked on college campuses:

4:55: Sen. Sasse (R-NE) says on CNN he thinks “there will be more candidates that enter this race if the only choices that we get are two dishonest New York liberals.” [Consultants have to make money this election cycle, after all]. He’ll also be appearing on MSNBC’s MTP Daily. Lots of airtime for Sasse after dramatically declaring he will not vote for Trump.

4:53: More signs of trouble for Dems.

4:50: National Religious Broadcasters President Endorses Cruz:

4:41: Establishment GOP TX Senator Cornyn: Trump ‘Albatross’ to GOP:

4:39: Poll: Sanders, Trump up in Oklahoma:

Sanders polled at 48 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent. Another 8 percent said they were undecided, and 1 percent said they planned to vote for another candidate.

Meanwhile, real estate mogul Donald Trump continued to lead the Republican field, with 35 percent. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came in second, with 23 percent, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in third, with 22 percent. The Republican poll has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

4:37: Pastor John Hagee at Cruz rally:

4:35: Wired: How Donald Trump Hacked This Election

The answer to these questions is that Trump’s rise is no fluke. Through it all, Trump has dismantled the traditional rules that dictate how candidates are supposed to act and what they’re supposed to say. He’s adapted his campaign to a new era of communication and culture, creating something so new and disruptive that, regardless of how we feel about the man, we can only watch, slack-jawed, as the phenomenon grows and grows and grows. Trump has moved fast and broken stuff and never apologized.

In other words, Trump has hacked the election.

4:30: When the media were saying that Trump’s criticisms of mainstream media reporters was “dangerous,” one mainstream media reporter (Robert Draper) went against the grain. Today, another went against the grain as journalists all flocked to defend the Time photographer who grabbed a Secret Service Agent’s throat during Trump’s Virginia rally:

https://twitter.com/DraperRobert/status/701810131697168384

4:20: Boston Herald:  Amid Trump Surge, 20,000 Massachusetts Democrats Left Party, Became Independents or Republicans:

Nearly 20,000 Bay State Democrats have fled the party this winter, with thousands doing so to join the Republican ranks, according to the state’s top elections official.

Secretary of State William Galvin said more than 16,300 Democrats have shed their party affiliation and become independent voters since Jan. 1, while nearly 3,500 more shifted to the MassGOP ahead of tomorrow’s “Super Tuesday” presidential primary.

4:13: Rep. DesJarlais (R-TN) votes for Trump:

U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais on Monday became the first member of Tennessee’s congressional delegation to say he is supporting Donald Trump for president.

The South Pittsburg Republican said in a statement released by his office that he voted for the New York real estate mogul and reality TV star during early voting.

“Republicans are fortunate in that we have an incredibly strong field of candidates running in the Republican Presidential Primary,” DesJarlais said. “While there are certainly things that I admire and respect in each of the remaining candidates, I believe Donald Trump is the candidate best poised to make America great again. As such, I was proud to cast my vote for Mr. Trump.”

4:08: Nolte:

https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/704410261072044033

4:05: Secret Service issues statement on Trump rally incident:

3:55: MSNBC Cuts off Black Trump Supporter, Tries to Downplay Potential Support for Trump among Black Americans:

Tamron Hall again showing her/MSNBC’s biases as MSNBC is trying to reportedly move to the center. MSNBC cuts off black Trump supporter when he goes against the media’s narrative. Over the weekend, MSNBC somehow allowed a Texan of Mexican descent to say she supports Trump–and the border wall. Hall has been going out of her way to interject her opinion when reading the news about Trump. She has also said, for instance, that it was ridiculous that Trump pointed out that the Vatican had a huge wall after Pope Francis said Trump was “un-Christian” for wanting a border Wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

3:33: Cruz says we’re not going to have a brokered convention and he is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump. He points out that Rubio is losing his home state by 20 points.

3:32: Cruz calls on Trump to let the New York Times to release the recording of the off-the-record conversation with him about immigration.

3:30: Kansas Secretary of State Kobach endorses Trump:

“I am pleased to announce my support Mr. Trump,” he said. “For me, the most important issue in the Republican presidential contest is immigration and its effect on our national security. On that issue, Mr. Trump stands head and shoulders above the other candidates. He has made it clear that ramping up the enforcement of our immigration laws will be his top priority.”

He added that, “Now, more than ever, America needs Mr. Trump’s aggressive approach to the problem of illegal immigration” and “there are too many Americans who are out of work because of illegal immigration or who are working in jobs in which the wages are depressed because of illegal immigration.”

https://twitter.com/KrisKobach1787/status/704384550978220032

3:15: Sanders declines Jesse Ventura endorsement?

3:03: Alan Grayson endorses Sanders.

3:00: Trump’s most effective message:

2:50: New York Times: Memo to Republican leaders: Be careful what you wish for. [Also worth noting that the RNC’s “autopsy” report’s insistence on comprehensive amnesty–the only policy solution the terribly-named reported advanced–and Rubio’s Gang of Eight cheerleading prevented Rubio from being the GOP frontrunner. Rubio’s numbers tanked in Iowa immediately after he became the face of the Gang of Eight and he never recovered.]

Hoping to avoid a repeat of the messy fight for the Republican nomination in 2012, the party drew up a calendar and delegate-selection rules intended to allow a front-runner to wrap things up quickly.

Now, with Republicans voting in 11 states on Tuesday, the worst fears of the party’s establishment are coming true: Donald J. Trump could all but seal his path to the nomination in a case of unintended consequences for the party leadership, which vehemently opposes him.

“Trump has significant advantages, and that’s the way the system is designed,” said Joshua T. Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia with an expertise in delegate selection. “It’s right in line with what the folks designing these rules wanted. It’s just not the candidate they preferred.”

As the calendar flips to March, a whirlwind of states vote on the same days and in quick succession. By the middle of the month, 58 percent of the total delegates will have been awarded, and Mr. Trump could be unstoppable in getting the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination.

2:42: Washington Post finds Trump’s support increasing among college graduates  AND Tea Party voters (Trump accomplishing what the “smart set” said Rubio was best positioned to do):

Wpost Trump poll

 

2:35: Tight race in Texas:

2:32: Good points about Romney.

https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/704379565590913024

2:30: Julian Castro auditioning to be Clinton’s running mate in a Time op-ed:

2:27: Cruz campaign spending big money ahead of Super Tuesday:

2:25: Congressional Hispanic Caucus PAC for Clinton (they were asked to endorse):

2:15: [Tony Lee] It’s been funny watching the incompetent GOP “smart set” whining about how the media are criticizing Rubio for making vulgar jokes about Trump on the stump. Rubio’s attacks may backfire because they go against the core of his brand and what his “politically correct” campaign had been about. He comes across as a desperate phony by completely flipping the image he had been presenting to voters on its head.

Second, the new voters who are attracted to Trump will not be turned off by “nasty” politics and will vote for him. But the type of new voters Rubio must attract–the more moderate and affluent voters in the suburbs–may actually be turned off by such juvenile attacks. So while the GOP “smart set” on Twitter praise and stroke each other on Twitter, they may not realize Rubio’s attacks may do him more a disservice in the end. What a bunch of “smart set” geniuses.

2:12: Rubio says if Trump were a robot, he would be made in China. This type of attack is more effective than jokes about the size of Trump’s hands because it undercuts some of Trump’s strengths:

2:05: Breitbart’s Joel Pollak:

1:48: Ben Carson writes that he’s staying in the race: 

On the day before the Super Tuesday contests — so far only four states have had their say in this election and just five percent of delegates have been assigned — I offer the people a different choice from the other candidates, one they deserve to be able to make for themselves, as they support the principles in which they really believe.

That is why I won’t listen as the pundits and politicians decree from on high. I refuse to play by Washington’s political rule book, or subjugate myself to the whims of the political class.

At times this decision has put me at a disadvantage, subjecting my supporters to underhanded tricks from other campaigns. No doubt my refusal to play the typical Washington games feeds into why so many D.C. pundits think I should leave the race.

Fortunately, it is not up to any pundit or political operative to pick our president. No matter how much they think they could do a better job than the American people, we know better, and they deserve better.

1:45: Crowd goes wild after Cruz floats Mark Levin as one of his Supreme Court nominees:

1:42: Jesse Ventura torn between Sanders and Trump:

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura says he’s split between backing Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and Republican candidate Donald Trump on the other end of the political spectrum.

It may seem like an odd choice between candidates, but Ventura told The Associated Press on Monday that he sees echoes of his own underdog win for governor in 1998 in their campaigns. Ventura earned a spot in Minnesota’s political history books by winning the state’s highest office as a member of the Reform Party, a third-party organization later renamed the Independence Party of Minnesota.

But for the political outsider, who is also a former professional wrestler, it all comes down to the influence of money in politics. Ventura said he disagrees with some of Trump’s platform, namely on foreign policy and immigration, but that he appreciates the New York businessman’s self-funded campaign, as well as Sanders’ stance on accepting contributions.

1:40: Romney again attacking Trump more ferociously than he ever attacked Obama. Did Romney repeatedly call out Obama for his radical ties?

1:37: More impressive turnout numbers for Republicans:

1:33: Crowd chants “USA! USA! USA!”

1:30: Reporter in video said to be Time magazine photographer

https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/704371708594155520

Update:

1:00 – Rubio already giving up on the insults?

12:56 – MEMES.

12:51 – Haley mad.

12:49 – Tinder account promotes Rubio–no word on whether it’s related to any campaign or PAC.

12:42 – Chris Christie’s brother again proves the maxim never to fight on Facebook:

12:38 – Cruz, Rubio strengthen their support in Texas, based on a new local CBS poll. While the Christie endorsement was a good move for Trump as Rubio was hammering his debate performance, Texas didn’t seem like the right venue to unveil the New Jersey governor’s support.

12:29 – Nikki Haley didn’t move the needle much for Rubio in South Carolina but is still stumping for him:

12:19 – Alabama: Trump 42, Rubio 19, Cruz 16. Oklahoma: Trump 35, Cruz 23, Rubio 22. Hillary Crushing Sanders in AL but only leads by five in OK.

12:16 – Massachusetts poll: Trump 47, Rubio 15, Cruz 15. Clinton 44, Sanders 43.

12:14 – Serious business.

12:05 – Cruz tries to chip away at Trump’s campaign slogan at Dallas rally:

12:o1 – Season 2 trailer of I Am Cait shows Bruce Jenner meeting Hillary Clinton (around 0:20 — yes, that is her with the high-pitched “Oh my gosh!”):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5nzh8jNVpc

11:44 – From a single Kasich speech:

11:20 – Rubio’s strategy to attack Trump is apparently backfiring.

Rubio has lost -5 points In the latest NBC Morning Consult poll, which was taken the Friday and Saturday as Rubio launched vicious attacks on Trump’s looks, hair, business record, and tweets.

Rubio dipped from 19% to 14% – a loss of about 20% of his support.

Trump climbed from 42% to 44%.

Ted Cruz, who held steady, is now in third place with 15% support.

 

11:16 – Trump quotes Gandhi

 

11:00 – John Kasich concedes Super Tuesday — and maybe Michigan — to Donald Trump

“I think Trump’s probably going to win probably all of them,” he told Tapper of this week’s Super Tuesday contests. “But you keep holding your own and we have our campaign plan. … Our campaign plan was ultimately to, you know, hold our own in some of these places, and we will, I expect.

“And then we’re going to head north. But at the end of the day, what changes this race is my ability to win in Ohio. And if any of these people can’t win their own states, they probably ought to get out. We ought to consolidate the race.”

 

10:44 – Massive line for Trump’s noon event in Virginia.

 

10:10 – Conservative Senator Tom Coburn endorses Rubio.

In his statement on Monday, Coburn said  Trump is “perpetuating a fraud on the American people. His empty promises, bullying and bloviating rhetoric will only deepen the frustration and disillusionment that gave rise to his campaign. He simply lacks the character, skills and policy knowledge to turn his grandiose promises into reality.”

 

10:08 – Hillary crushes Sanders in delegate count.

9:51 – Rubio: “The media wants Trump as the nominee because they want Hillary to win.”

On the stump in Tennessee, Marco Rubio tells the crowd that Trump is the national media’s choice for the Republican nominee, but only because the media believes they can shred Trump to pieces and make Hillary Clinton president.

“We cannot elect the dog that caught the car. Think about that.”

 

9:42 – Scarborough joins the Washington Post as a contributor

Joe Scarborough has three hours a day to spout opinion, but WaPo thinks America is craving for even more! The DC Media is just one giant hollowed-out volcano where the chairs are sometimes shifted around. And everyone thinks exactly alike.

9:32 – HuffPo: “Democrats Should Be Very Nervous About Their Terrible Turnout Numbers

In primary after primary this cycle, Democratic voters just aren’t showing up. Only 367,491 people cast a ballot for either Clinton or Sanders on Saturday. That’s down 16 percent from the 436,219 people who came out in 2008 for Clinton and Obama. Factor in the 93,522 people who voted for John Edwards back in the day, and you can see the scope of the problem. Democrats in 2016 are only getting about two-thirds of the primary votes that they received eight years ago.

Republican turnout in the South Carolina primary, by contrast, was up more than 70 percent from 2008.

South Carolina’s turnout numbers are not an anomaly. They’re consistent with other primaries to date. Republicans are psyched. Democrats are demoralized.

 

9:16 – Media mocks Marco’s gutter politics

9:09 – WaPo – “The Republican Party’s implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy has arrived

The implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy that Republicans had hoped to avoid arrived so virulently this weekend that many party leaders vowed never to back the billionaire and openly questioned whether the GOP could come together this election year.

At a moment when Republicans had hoped to begin taking on Hillary Clinton — who is seemingly on her way to wrapping up the Democratic nomination — the GOP has instead become consumed by a crisis over its identity and core values that is almost certain to last through the July party convention, if not the rest of the year.

 

9:04 – Trump winning college grads

8:58 – Divided GOP. Interesting that this is a statistical tie. The Establishment keeps telling us only Rubio can unify the Party.

8:40 – Lead singer for Christian group drops Rubio over his Trump cheap shots.

8:25 – David Axelrod tells CNN that Marco Rubio is “diminishing himself” with these attacks on Donald Trump’s hands, hair and penis.

8:17 – Scarborough attacks Trump over David Duke answer:

In his op-ed, Scarborough shared his concern that Donald Trump hesitated to condemn the group.

“A simple ‘yes’ would have worked,” he wrote. “But on Sunday, Donald Trump swatted away the easy answers and instead feigned ignorance about the KKK and its most infamous Grand Wizard. The Republican frontrunner’s failure to provide what should have been a simple answer has raised even more disturbing questions about the man who is on course to lock down the GOP’s nomination for president.”

 

8:12 – Trump beats Hillary in New York.

A publicly disclosed Siena College poll of Long Island voters last week found Trump narrowly beating Clinton among Long Island voters, 41 percent to 38 percent, while he was crushing his two nearest GOP primary opponents, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, by 37 percentage points each.

7:44 – On the Today Show, Trump asks the key question, “How many times do I have to disavow David Duke?”

I’m sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece that they gave me, and you could hardly hear what he was saying. But what I heard was various groups, and I don’t mind disavowing anybody, and I disavowed David Duke and I disavowed him the day before at a major news conference, which is surprising because he was at the major news conference, CNN was at the major news conference, and they heard me very easily disavow David Duke.

[Tapper] also talked about groups. And I have no problem with disavowing groups, but I’d at least like to know who they are. It would be very unfair to disavow a group, Matt, if the group shouldn’t be disavowed. I have to know who the groups are. But I disavowed David Duke.”

Prior to CNN’s Jake Tapper asking Trump about David Duke on Sunday, less than 48 hours earlier, in a big news conference, Trump disavowed Duke.

Trump also said that what threw him off was Tapper being unclear about “other groups.”

7:27 – Trump hits 49% nationally in CNN poll. Marco Rubio sits at a paltry 16%. Cruz earns 15%. What will Fox News say now about Trump’s ceiling?

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.