Super Tuesday Cheat Sheet

What to expect tonight:

First, join us at 9:00pm ET on The Countdown! Reed and I are joined by Simon Rosenberg for a smary analysis of the outcomes of today’s elections!

The News Will Struggle With This One

I feel for on-air talent and producers tonight. They know how it will end, but they still need to do an eight-hour television block with few surprises in the math or outcomes. Much of the coverage will rightly focus on the numbers Nikki Haley produces, but the conclusion is so foregone that only a madman would have predicted it.

And by “madman,” I mean your humble correspondent. When I predicted in 2021 that this would resolve into a Trump-Biden contest, I was pilloried left, right, and center. A Trump-Biden contest was always the only way this would end.

This is the night the General Election is entirely on, whether you like it or not. No more excuses are available.

After four years of denial, it will be clear.

The nominees of the parties will be Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

And it will be the most brutal election of our lifetimes. Gird yourselves.

A Trump Blowout Tonight Means Less Than You Think

Given the allocation math I’m doing in the back of this Uber headed into a drizzly and cold New York City, Trump will have roughly 71% of the delegates he needs to complete the trivial formality of being named the Republican nominee for President.

It’s all downhill from here.

None of this should surprise or dishearten you. We’ll see in many of the states tonight generate a set of data our numbers guys will be teasing apart for weeks. What will we be looking at? The locations, demographics, and realities of the Nikki Haley vote. It won’t be significant. It won’t be decisive. It will be one more piece of the mosaic on how we defeat Trump this November.

We won’t keep all of her voters. We won’t even win a majority. But we will keep some; in this case, we’re playing a game of small numbers. Trump can’t afford to lose key demographics of educated, high-propensity voters…and many of those are repelled by Trump and look to Nikki as a haven.

Trump Fans Go Nuts

“BIRD FLIES!” “SUN RISES!” “TRUMP WINS GOP PRIMARY!”

Nothing will rival the self-regard of the Tumpentariat, extrapolating a sweeping November victory from an entirely expected outcome.

Tonight is also the opening act of the MAGA media alignment against Biden as its only target. They had to focus on Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis for a few months. No more.

There’s an old aviation story about Franklin Delano Roosevelt giving King Abdulaziz a DC-3 airplane in 1943. As Abdulaziz was taken on a demo ride in the plane, the pilots and crew were gushing. “Isn’t this amazing, King? Isn’t this remarkable? See how we’re in the air as if by magic?”

To which the King is said to have responded, “It is not supposed to do this?”

None of this is a shock.

Trump wins the GOP primary? Is it not supposed to do this?

A Biden Blowout

Can it have been four months since Steve Schmidt promised us that Dean Philips would win New Hampshire, ushering in a new era of youthful Democratic leadership? Good times. We’ll see the end of the dumb Philips campaign, and despite the damage he tried to do, the Democratic nomination is in safe hands. Ice cream beats gelato.

Bill Ackmann hardest hit.

The good news is simple: Biden’s campaign shifted into general election mode a few weeks ago, and they’re ahead of Trump in three key areas. First, they’ve got money in the bank and much more money coming since the Democratic donor base finally realized this is the only game in town.

Please let Philips and Moonbeam Williamson stop consuming even a trivial amount of your political bandwidth. I’ll do the same.

California’s Dumb Garvey Bubble.

Trump will sweep both states and their massive delegate hauls with numbers that will make your eye pop. Texas is, well, Texas. Don’t read anything in to it. California has the largest number of GOP voters in the nation, and they’ve taken a deep hit off the MAGA bong.

There will be a momentary media kerfuffle over GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Garvey tonight, which you can safely ignore. A divided Democratic field and the jungle primary system in California means Garvey will likely lead the back by at least a few percentage points. No, California is not turning red. No, Trump isn’t going to win California. Garvey will finish 2024 somewhere in the mid-high 30s.

Watch the CA GOP “Biden 18” House Races

What you should watch for is the performance of the “moderate” (a term I use most advisedly) Republicans who are under pressure. Watch David Valadao’s numbers closely. This faction in the House is termed the “Biden 18” because they won districts where Biden beat Trump. Five of the 18 live in California. They’ll all need to own Trump, the Comer/Jordan vibepeachment, the party crazies, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Porn Monitoring App).