Trump, Kasich Get a Bump in Latest South Carolina Poll

In the beginning they weren’t even considering him because of his last name. Bernie Sanders’ wins at the 2016 New Hampshire primary for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, respectively. Bush in particular will need a solid showing in SC, given his prominent political family’s ties to the state, while Kasich is just hoping to remain viable until the race heads to friendly territory for the Midwestern governor.

On Friday, Trump threatened to sue Cruz for “not being a natural born citizen” if he “doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating and doing negative ads”. “We’ll see if he can turn it around”, said 68-year-old Rubio supporter Rusty DePass after a Wednesday rally in Columbia.

Cruz’s path to the nomination depends the most on him performing well in SC and then a number of southern states on March 1. That victory, and the political rise of the real-estate mogul, has Vox’s Ezra Klein declaring Trump’s ascendancy to be a “terrifying moment in American politics.” Bush’s surrogates, meanwhile, are working to bury fellow GOP rivals John Kasich and Marco Rubio. Trump followed up: “Cruz is the worst liar, insane or very dishonest”. Leading comfortably in polling in advance of Tuesday’s primary, Trump won 35 percent of the vote, 19 points ahead of Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Bush has pounced on Rubio in recent weeks, running ads against the U.S. Senator and politicians who have pledged their support to him in his run for the White House.

Both the other Republican candidates and the pundits should take a close look at those polls, because they raise questions about what we think we know about the Trump phenomenon. “Now, all of the sudden, they’re like, ‘How do I get a seat at the table?'” Surviving that long won’t be easy, though, especially if they don’t take some opponents out and fast. He conducted 106 town hall meetings with voters who decided they liked him better than Christie, who had also bet heavily on New Hampshire to keep him in the race.

As they did in New Hampshire, where Kasich finished second, Bush aides have accused Kasich of being weak on defense because of his congressional position on base closures. Most Republican poli ticians, for whatever reason, have been ducking public endorsements.

To be fair, the New Hampshire results showed that Democrats have their own serious problem. It now seems more likely than not that Trump and Cruz will split all four of the states holding primaries in February.

The former HP executive promised to “continue to serve in order to restore citizen government to this great nation so that together we may fulfill our potential”, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in sixth place, reflecting that he had not “an ounce of regret” for the experience in New Hampshire. The debate will be an important signal as to whether the field has changed its approach since Tuesday’s shocking primary.