May 10th was another major step to the Republican 2016 nomination for Donald Trump. His vote total, cast by Republicans and Independents in West Virginia – not so long ago a Democrat stronghold – was more than impressive and guaranteed him all the delegates.
With 97% counted, The Donald received 76.9% (151,307 votes), Cruz received 9% (17,706 votes) and Kasich received 6.8% (13,389 votes). Trump’s overwhelming percentage suggests that Right-leaning voters are decisively uniting behind him and that the Republican Third-party-ers are being left high and dry by an ebbing tide.
In Nebraska, until recently considered Cruz’s prairie territory, Trump did less well, but good enough, with 61.4% (119,531 votes). Cruz received 18.5% (35,946 votes) and Kasich 11.4% (22,166 votes). Here again it can be said that the Republican base is uniting behind Trump.
As we have written several times on this website, the latest results in this primary sequence always provide an up-to-the-minute snapshot of a dynamic process. How people voted back last September, or even last month, has limited relevance when compared to how they voted yesterday. The trend is clearly and strongly in Trump’s favor. Cruz and Kasich have rapidly become nearly as stale news as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham. And barring a political earthquake on the West Coast, Donald Trump will surge past the magic number of 1237 needed to clinch the nomination in Cleveland, Ohio. He now has 1138, a mere 99 needed to sprint across the finishing line.
West Virginia was another humiliation for Hillary Clinton and she will now need to be carried across the finishing line. It was, in contrast, a triumph for the rasping old Trotskyite from the Bronx. Sanders received 51.4% (120,000 votes) and Clinton received 36% (84,000 votes). The MSM has been explaining away her trouncing in West Virginia by attributing it to her past ‘green’ attacks on the coal industry, but the plain truth is that she has become a serial loser. The inescapable truth that Sanders has revealed is that Clinton is increasingly unpopular with the Democrat Party base. The exit polling that revealed almost half of Sanders’ voters would vote for Trump if Clinton is the November candidate, will have shaken Democrat strategists.
Sanders and his supporters must now be reconsidering their early launch as a protest movement, and thinking that the White House has come within their grasp. The supposed firewall of unelected delegates may not protect Clinton from a redundancy notice at the Convention if she continues to lose the remaining contests. Before people on our side dismiss as ludicrous the idea of Bernie in the White House, two things need to be pondered.
The total Democrat vote in WV was over 200,000 and the total Republican vote was 182,000. This despite the fact that both Democrats are on record as being against the coal industry.
Secondly, it is possible that at the Democrat Convention Hillary will strike a deal that gives Bernie the VP position and a Far, Far Left Party platform. This would have great appeal in America’s big cities and among some minorities. One thing is certain. This is not a time of ‘politics as usual’.
Today, Rush Limbaugh was again taking sneaky jabs at Trump and talking wistfully of Cruz. He reminded his listeners that only four years ago Trump was saying the nicest things about the Clintons. Michael Savage expressed concerns about the advisers that Trump is now hiring and Trump’s plan to take money from Hollywood and Wall Street. That sounds like ‘politics as usual’.