Who Should Drop Out?

Pretty simple. Given last nights results who do you think should drop out and why?

I vote for Christie, Bush, Paul, Carson, and Fiorina to drop out. Kasich is going to aim for some shocker in NH but I don't think he'll get it. After that he should drop out too. That would leave us with a Rubio, Cruz, and Trump race.

I think after a poor showing Christie and Paul may actually drop out. I think Fiorina is a toss up. I think Carson is crazy and will stay in for a long time. I think if Kasich gets a bad showing he'll drop out after NH. I think Bush will keep going until Super Tuesday.

I think that kind of winnowing of the field would leave us with a solid establishment vs. religious conservative vs. maverick/Trump kind of election and will make policy differences sharper and easier to distinguish for the voters.

Thoughts?

PS: I didn't include Cruz, Rubio, or Trump because that would be ridiculous. Vent your frustrations elsewhere but facts are facts.

PPS: I also didn't include Santorum or Gilmore because... why would you?

Christie, Bush, Paul, Carson, and Fiorina and Santorum.

Other than Bush the above are only in it for self enrichment. Kasich and Christie have a chance to be better than a blip in NH but they won't do well in SC

I should have made this a multiple choice poll. Mods is there any way to do that without reposting the entire thread? My apologies.

Hillary and Trump are not on the list

Too bad the poll doesn't allow multiple choices.....in my opinion, they all should drop out, perhaps with the exception of Christie at this point. None of them have any shot.

After NH, if Bush and Kasich can't make a meaningful dent, it would probably behoove them to drop out. Bush's best signs are coming out of NH, but if he can't get that meaningful 2nd or 3rd position, it's obviously over.

Everyone else I am not mentioning will need to bow out after their very likely poor showing in NH.

Bush, Kasich, and Christie are all now betting on large breakouts in New Hampshire. While I think that it would be better for the party if they dropped out, there is no internal logic for them to do so.

Carson needed Iowa in order to have any path, and is now hoping for South Carolina... which he won't make. He should drop out.

Fiorina has no path to victory and is clearly pitching herself as the VP nod. She should drop out. I vote Fiorina because Carson has delegates, a national following, and a state in the future where he might do well, and the poll doesn't allow multiple choices.

cpwill said:

Bush, Kasich, and Christie are all now betting on large breakouts in New Hampshire. While I think that it would be better for the party if they dropped out, there is no internal logic for them to do so.

Carson needed Iowa in order to have any path, and is now hoping for South Carolina... which he won't make. He should drop out.

Fiorina has no path to victory and is clearly pitching herself as the VP nod. She should drop out. I vote Fiorina because Carson has delegates, a national following, and a state in the future where he might do well, and the poll doesn't allow multiple choices.

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Obviously, the lower tier needs to check out next week and so do at least 2-3 after that.

Fiorina just needs to go home and become CEO of K-Mart or something.

Carson needs to go home and sleep.

I'm biased, as you all know, but it's ludicrous for anyone to be talking about Bush dropping out after last night's vote. Bush was never a factor in Iowa and, unlike Cruz and Rubio, Bush was never going to disingenuously pander to the Christian conservatives in Iowa in order to get traction. Cruz and Rubio's late, born again, come to Jesus rhetoric in Iowa the past couple of weeks was cringe worthy and in order to get traction in Iowa they may have each damaged themselves going forward. Rubio, however, comes out the better of those two because he greatly exceeded expectations.

The big news is Trump is no longer seen as inevitable and invincible. Happens a lot coming out of Iowa - happened to Hillary in 2008. I can see Trump quickly falling out of the race because The Donald losing isn't good for the brand, and he's all about the brand.

The establishment Governors aren't going to drop out of the race now, particularly not Bush, who has organization and money at play in many of the upcoming primaries after New Hampshire and I fully expect him to get a boost out of New Hampshire and join the serious conversation about who can win this race. Cruz is despised - I can't see him getting the nomination, no way, no how. And Rubio still has that vulnerable look about him.

With all that, any talk of candidates other then the true bottom feeders dropping out is premature and a little crazy.

Bush, Kasich, and Christie are all now betting on large breakouts in New Hampshire. While I think that it would be better for the party if they dropped out, there is no internal logic for them to do so.

Carson needed Iowa in order to have any path, and is now hoping for South Carolina... which he won't make. He should drop out.

Fiorina has no path to victory and is clearly pitching herself as the VP nod. She should drop out. I vote Fiorina because Carson has delegates, a national following, and a state in the future where he might do well, and the poll doesn't allow multiple choices.


Rubio and Cruz surged by 6 and 4 points respectively ahead of their RCP averages in Iowa. There aren't the large numbers of evangelicals in New Hampshire to help Cruz pull that off, so we may see a surge from Rubio, but will probably see Cruz get a bump from winning and then maintain. Trump underperformed by about 4.5.

Trump's lead in New Hampshire is so commanding, he could underperform twice as badly, and still win, so long as the other candidates supporters don't drop them to coalesce around one or two alternatives.

The Contenders for Second Place are all pretty sharply tied: Cruz and Kasich both tied at 11.5, Bush at 10.3, and Rubio at 9.5.

Analysis: the easy bit to address is that "no candidate other than Bill Clinton has won in modern times without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire". Assuming Trump wins New Hampshire, Cruz will have a strong argument that this is now a two-man race, which is exactly the argument he will make if he thinks that Trump will not get a lot of moderate/establishment support. If the four "second Places" (assuming we keep Christie at 6.5% in there) all continue to jostle amongst each other, it's very difficult for any one of them to really break out enough to break into that Two-Man contest in a real way, rather than as a potential spoiler.


Cruz gets a bump, but it's not his turf, the effect is muted. New Hampshire doesn't like to rubber-stamp Iowa. Rubio gets a bump, and has much more potential upside, if Christie/Bush/Kasich don't take it from them.

At current, 538 puts the likely results like this:

View attachment 67196536


Take away 4 points for Trump, add 2 points to Cruz, and 4 points to Rubio. My initial Gut-Guess, that's the initial impact of Iowa. Now we see if the negative campaigns against Rubio had more effect in New Hampshire (where there are more viable candidates for moderates to hop to, and more of them willing to do so) than they did in Iowa. If so, we could see Kasich surge to second, or Bush surge to third, either of them knocking off Rubio in order to get there. Neither of them have a realistic path to victory (IMO) after New Hampshire, but they could do well enough to ensure that it becomes a de-facto Cruz-Trump race.

Fiddytree said:

Obviously, the lower tier needs to check out next week and so do at least 2-3 after that.

Fiorina just needs to go home and become CEO of K-Mart or something.

Carson needs to go home and sleep.

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Oh! And Paul. Go home and focus on your Senate Race, Paul.

Including Trump isn't ridiculous. He significantly underperformed expectations given his polling numbers and he pretty clearly doesn't have the support he thinks he does. It's only a matter of time for him. In essence everyone but Cruz, Rubio, Clinton and Sanders should pack it in at this point.

CanadaJohn said:

I'm biased, as you all know, but it's ludicrous for anyone to be talking about Bush dropping out after last night's vote. Bush was never a factor in Iowa and, unlike Cruz and Rubio, Bush was never going to disingenuously pander to the Christian conservatives in Iowa in order to get traction. Cruz and Rubio's late, born again, come to Jesus rhetoric in Iowa the past couple of weeks was cringe worthy and in order to get traction in Iowa they may have each damaged themselves going forward. Rubio, however, comes out the better of those two because he greatly exceeded expectations.

The big news is Trump is no longer seen as inevitable and invincible. Happens a lot coming out of Iowa - happened to Hillary in 2008. I can see Trump quickly falling out of the race because The Donald losing isn't good for the brand, and he's all about the brand.

The establishment Governors aren't going to drop out of the race now, particularly not Bush, who has organization and money at play in many of the upcoming primaries after New Hampshire and I fully expect him to get a boost out of New Hampshire and join the serious conversation about who can win this race. Cruz is despised - I can't see him getting the nomination, no way, no how. And Rubio still has that vulnerable look about him.

With all that, any talk of candidates other then the true bottom feeders dropping out is premature and a little crazy.

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agree in declaring victory Cruz's opening statement was "to god goes the glory". Won't play well outside of Iowa.

Need to be able to pick multiple candidates...more than one should drop out.

I could only choose one, not sure why. I chose Carson.

Fiorina, Christie and Bush won't drop until after NH.

Kasich will go about 5 more primary states, then drop.

Paul won't drop out for quite a while.

All of them except the top three. None stand a chance. They may as well save the money...oh, that's right. They are politicians. Saving money is a foreign concept to them.

cpwill said:

Oh! And Paul. Go home and focus on your Senate Race, Paul.

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Maybe he'll have a moment of clarity when he filibusters some bill for press coverage by thinking to himself, "hey, I kinda like it here."

Santorum and Carly should drop out. IMO Santorum definitely will.

Carson also should, but after the dirty tricks of Cruz's campaign last night I doubt he will drop out. He'll stay in for awhile just to piss Cruz off and make sure none of his supporters move to the Cruz camp.

BTW the last 2 GOP Iowa winners? Huck and Santorum couldn't have fallen further and made less of an impact, in 2008, 2112 and now 2016 if they tried. This happens because they thought the whole country thinks like and wants everything the ultra-conservative Christians in Iowa wants. It just show how completely useless the Iowa primary is, and how out of touch the Iowa voter demographic is.

Same thing will happen with Cruz.

tres borrachos said:

I could only choose one, not sure why. I chose Carson.

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Because like Fiorina, and Trump, you're thinking with some sense of exasperation: "what on God's green earth are you doing running for President when you have never actually held office? We just got done talking about how inexperienced the current President is and you've decided to double down on inexperience?"

tres borrachos said:

I could only choose one, not sure why. I chose Carson.

Fiorina, Christie and Bush won't drop until after NH.

Kasich will go about 5 more primary states, then drop.

Paul won't drop out for quite a while.

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Kasich lacks cash and a game beyond New Hampshire. Bush has both (especially Florida). What makes you think Bush drops out but Kasich doesn't?

Fiddytree said:

Because like Fiorina, and Trump, you're thinking with some sense of exasperation: "what on God's green earth are you doing running for President when you have never actually held office? We just got done talking about how inexperienced the current President is and you've decided to double down on inexperience?"

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Not really. I think Carson should drop out because of his poor showing. I think Fiorina is a great lady, she just isn't going to get my vote because I prefer Rubio. I don't hold her lack of political office against her. Being a politician doesn't make you special. Apparently any idiot can get elected, if there are enough idiots in the constituency. Think Charles Rangel and Cynthia McKinney and Nancy Pelosi, among others.

Sherman123 said:

Pretty simple. Given last nights results who do you think should drop out and why?

I vote for Christie, Bush, Paul, Carson, and Fiorina to drop out. Kasich is going to aim for some shocker in NH but I don't think he'll get it. After that he should drop out too. That would leave us with a Rubio, Cruz, and Trump race.

I think after a poor showing Christie and Paul may actually drop out. I think Fiorina is a toss up. I think Carson is crazy and will stay in for a long time. I think if Kasich gets a bad showing he'll drop out after NH. I think Bush will keep going until Super Tuesday.

I think that kind of winnowing of the field would leave us with a solid establishment vs. religious conservative vs. maverick/Trump kind of election and will make policy differences sharper and easier to distinguish for the voters.

Thoughts?

PS: I didn't include Cruz, Rubio, or Trump because that would be ridiculous. Vent your frustrations elsewhere but facts are facts.

PPS: I also didn't include Santorum or Gilmore because... why would you?

Click to expand...

I think it is too soon to write Kasich, Christi, and Carson off--New Hampshire is a very different dynamic from Iowa. And Jeb has already invested in the ads and ground game there. But if they don't make a good showing in New Hampshire, then yes, the campaign flow dries up and they will be forced to suspend their campaigns. They have to suspend instead of quit so that they are technically still candidates and can raise money to pay off their campaign debts.

But philosophically, the ones I would most want to drop out are Clinton and Sanders. And that isn't going to happen so oh well. . .

cpwill said:

Kasich lacks cash and a game beyond New Hampshire. Bush has both (especially Florida). What makes you think Bush drops out but Kasich doesn't?

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It will depend on how they perform in NH, and I think Kasich will perform well here. If he does, I see him generating a lot of cash. I don't think Bush will drop because he can no longer fundraise. I think he'll drop because he has no chance.

tres borrachos said:

Not really. I think Carson should drop out because of his poor showing. I think Fiorina is a great lady, she just isn't going to get my vote because I prefer Rubio. I don't hold her lack of political office against her. Being a politician doesn't make you special. Apparently any idiot can get elected, if there are enough idiots in the constituency. Think Charles Rangel and Cynthia McKinney and Nancy Pelosi, among others.

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Eh, I guess that's my cross to bear. Remove the non-politicians first, ostracize their supporters, I say. That means I get to trash 1 in 4 Republicans, but so be it.

tres borrachos said:

It will depend on how they perform in NH, and I think Kasich will perform well here. If he does, I see him generating a lot of cash. I don't think Bush will drop because he can no longer fundraise. I think he'll drop because he has no chance.

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...I think you are projecting Kasich's appeal in New Hampshire abroad. Bush has some appeal beyond New Hampshire. Does Kasich?