So Trump is running for president.

I’m sorry to hear that. I think he was a great president, and he has every right to run again, and expect support. But I don’t think he can win.

While many folks love Trump, many people loathe him. He probably has a hard ceiling for his support, and 2020 and 2022 suggest it is less than a majority. 

And there are almost no undecideds who might simply sit on their hands.

And if they were prepared to cheat to ensure he was not president in 2020, why wouldn't they prevent it at all costs this time?

Then again, I thought Trump was a disastrous choice for the Republican nomination in 2016 as well, and was proven wrong. 

Trump's Fade: Super Saturday

Super Saturday is further proof that Trump has reached and passed his high water mark. He underperformed the recent polls by quite a bit. Folks are saying Rubio did remarkably badly and probably should drop out. I'm not so sure. Trump says he wants hum to drop out. That is a good clue that he should not. He is naturally the biggest challenge to Trump in his home state of Florida. But there are also a bunch of big northern states coming up that are winner-take-all. These do not look like good prospects for Cruz. They might be more fertile ground for Rubio. Without Rubio in, they are likely to go to Trump.

It seems to me that Rubio's strong attacks on Trump badly hurt Trump, but also hurt Rubio. Cruz was the beneficiary. He split the four states ith Trump 50/50, but he barely lost Louisiana and Kentucky, while he crushed Trump in Kansas and won handily in Maine, a state that did not look like Cruz country. And these states award their delegates proportionately.

In any case, I think it's all downhill from here for Trump.

A Brokered Convention

Now that he's won the last three primaries, Rick Santorum is certainly not going to drop out of the Republican race any time soon. Having won South Carolina and still doing well in the national polls, neither, I expect, is Newt Gingrich.  Paul and Romney have the money and organization to stay in until the end no matter what.

This could mean nobody has a majority of delegates by the convention. And if this happens, if my memory serves, delegates are released from their pledge to a given candidate after the first ballot. The possibility opens for the convention to turn to a candidate who has not run in the primaries. moreover, there would be a certain obvious logic to doing so--a general dissatisfaction with the present field seems to be fuelling the voter indecision.

I suspect Romney has blown his chance to be the nominee by going too negative. Negative campaigning does have a tendency to blow up the author as well as the target. Romney was rather unloved by fellow Republicans before this all started; his extremely harsh attacks on Gingrich, added to that, may have made it impossible for the party to unite behind him.

How Gingrich Could Still Win...

Mitt Romney's achievement in winning the first two primary season contests is historic. But, as noted previouosly in this space, the rules this year have changed: few states are now winner-take-all. That means a strong early showing is not prohibitive to others any longer.

As others drop out, the anybody-but-Mitt faction--which seems to be about 75% of the Republican Party electorate--will inevitably coalesce around one candidate, and there may well still be enough delegates in play at that point to keep it interesting. In addition, oddly, Romney has not yet really faced the scrutiny and attacks others have. Now that he is beginning to, he may see the same drop in the polls as they. Takes about two weeks for this to have an effect. That two week lag takes us to about the time of the South Carolina primary.

Now, who is best placed to last long enough to benefit from this possibility? Santorum has the benefit of his strong showing in Iowa, but he did not do nearly as well in NH; so the momentum may be lost. One of today's headlines has him "crashing to earth in New Hampshire." And his campaign has always looked short of money. Perry reputedly has money, but his showing in both Iowa and NH has been dismal. Texas must be beckoning. Paul has a natural ceiling on his support; he cannot be an ABRomney champion. The same could be said of Huntsman--he can do rather well in an open primary like NH, where Democrats can vote for their favourite Republican, but he has been running to Romney's left, and that has turned out--to my own surprise--to be a very shallow pool in the Republican party this time around. In SC polls, he currently runs somewhere behind Steve Colbert. That leaves Gingrich. He at least seems to be picking up steam now instead of losing it--beat everyone else on the solid right in the NH vote, edging out Santorum. He will have the same advantage in South Carolina, of coming from the next state, that Romney had in NH.And he has just had a major new infusion of cash from a wealthy backer, apparently.

Imagine a win for Newt in South Carolina that surprises the pundits enough to become a big news item, like Hilary's win in NH last time, or McCain's. Things could then change. And the latest polling shows him only four points behind.

Imagine further that a relatively poor showing there forces Perry and Huntsman out of the race.

As they say, a week is a long time in politics.

Full disclosure: I personally want Newt Gingrich to win. Why? Because he is such an interesting character. I would love to hear what he has to say over the next four years.