Chad’s Morning Brief: It’s All About Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz

While Marco Rubio rises in New Hampshire, both Rubio and Ted Cruz see paths opening. The Chad Hasty Show airs 8:30-11am on 790AM KFYO.

Rubio Gains Traction in New Hampshire

Donald Trump is still leading in New Hampshire but Marco Rubio is on the rise according to CBS News.

Donald Trump still maintains a sizable lead in New Hampshire, but Marco Rubio is gaining traction in the key early voting state, according to a Monmouth University survey released Monday.

The poll found 26 percent of likely GOP primary voters support Trump, 16 percent back Ben Carson and now 13 percent support Rubio.

Only four percent of likely GOP primary voters said they supported Rubio in Monmouth University's last New Hampshire poll in September.

In the latest poll, 11 percent said they support John Kasich, nine percent support Ted Cruz, and seven percent support former Jeb Bush. Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie each received five percent support and only one percent of voters said they back Rand Paul.

Support for Trump and Fiorina, the poll found, has decreased by 2 percentage points each since September.

Carson received the highest favorability rating of 64 percent. And 62 percent gave Rubio a favorable rating, which was up quite a bit from September. Bush's and Christie's favorability ratings have slightly improved, too, while most of the other candidates have seen their ratings slip.

Twenty percent of likely primary voters said they are completely decided on their preferred candidate, nearly 40 percent said they have a strong preference but could consider other candidates and 19 percent said they are really undecided.

The poll out of New Hampshire shows a big increase not only for Rubio but for Ted Cruz as well. I expect to see both candidates rise in national polling as well soon.

Rubio and Cruz Consolidating Wings of the GOP

A really good piece from National Journal details how Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are both winning over support within the GOP.

After well-re­ceived de­bate per­form­ances last week, it is start­ing to look more likely that Ted Cruz and Marco Ru­bio could be the can­did­ates who go head-to-head for the Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­en­tial nom­in­a­tion next spring. And already, we can see—based on where they get their money—how the sen­at­ors could emerge as stand­ard-bear­ers from dif­fer­ent sides of the GOP.

Cruz and Ru­bio, who polls show to be two of the most broadly liked can­did­ates among Re­pub­lic­ans, are each the firm second choices of donors to nearly every oth­er can­did­ate in their re­spect­ive wings of the Re­pub­lic­an Party, ac­cord­ing to a Na­tion­al Journ­al ana­lys­is of item­ized dona­tions to each GOP pres­id­en­tial cam­paign.

And while Re­pub­lic­ans’ money and votes are split among a wide range of can­did­ates right now, Cruz and Ru­bio’s pop­ular­ity with oth­er cam­paigns’ sup­port­ers sug­gests that they are the most broadly ac­cept­able can­did­ates to sup­port­ers of those two “lanes” of the Re­pub­lic­an Party—what the Los Angeles Times’s Doyle Mc­Manus re­cently called the “main­stream” and “in­sur­gent” wings of the GOP.

Both sen­at­ors are well po­si­tioned to con­sol­id­ate money and votes on their sides of the party as the field of can­did­ates win­nows this winter—if their cam­paigns con­tin­ue to win plaudits, as they did in last week’s CN­BC de­bate.

For ex­ample, among Jeb Bush donors, Ru­bio has raised sub­stan­tially more money than any oth­er can­did­ate (ex­cept Bush, of course). Ru­bio has also raised more than oth­er can­did­ates from donors to Carly Fior­ina and Lind­sey Gra­ham—oth­er cam­paign­ers in the “main­stream” lane.

To ex­plore an­oth­er ex­ample: Fior­ina’s cam­paign raised about $4.5 mil­lion in item­ized dona­tions (out of $8.5 mil­lion total) through the end of Septem­ber, ac­cord­ing to Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion fil­ings. Ru­bio’s own donor rolls in­clude over $484,000 in con­tri­bu­tions from people who also gave to Fior­ina; no oth­er can­did­ate got more than $364,000 from Fior­ina donors.

Ru­bio is also in a dead heat with Bush for sec­ond­ary sup­port from John Kasich donors, too, with each rais­ing about $110,000 from the donor pool that gave $4.4 mil­lion ($3.7 mil­lion of it item­ized) to the Ohio gov­ernor.

Mean­while, Cruz is the oth­er can­did­ate of choice among donors to a large group of can­did­ates from the “in­sur­gent” wing of the GOP. No can­did­ate has raised more from Ben Car­son donors (be­sides Ben Car­son) than Cruz, who has raised at least $628,000 from Car­son’s pool of donors this year. And the same is true of donors to Mike Hucka­bee, Bobby Jin­dal, Rand Paul, Rick San­tor­um, and Don­ald Trump, all of whom gave more money to Cruz than to any oth­er can­did­ate be­sides their own.

Are we heading towards a Cruz-Rubio showdown? It's possible, but it is still early and let's not forget that Donald Trump is still leading this whole race. However, if it does come down to a Cruz-Rubio finale, count me as someone who thinks that is a win for the Republicans.