8 reasons why Marco Rubio is going to win the Republican nomination

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1. Marco Rubio leads the polls when Republicans are asked who they could see themselves voting for.

Compare the difference between supposed frontrunner Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll from last week when voters were asked who they might vote for:



Rubio has consistently led when Republicans are asked who they might vote for. From the WSJ/NBC July poll:





Marco leads the field.



In a historically strong group of Republican presidential candidates, this is arguably the number that matters most. Being the second or third choice for voters right now means that as candidates like start dropping out, Rubio is going to pick up votes.





2. Republicans like Marco Rubio.







He’s optimistic, his biography exemplifies American Exceptionalism, and he doesn’t get caught up in the bickering during debates. Republicans like that, per a recent Quinnipiac poll:





3. Of all the Republicans running for the White House, Rubio has the least amount of haters.







You might not know this from social media, but Marco Rubio is the least disliked candidate among primary voters:







Rubio has the least amount of people who would definitely not vote for him.



Other polls back up this assertion. A BusinessWeek poll from last week showed that Marco Rubio had the smallest number of Republicans who viewed him very unfavorably out of the 15 presidential candidates.







4. Evangelical opinion leaders are increasingly choosing Rubio.







Check out the results of this World magazine poll of evangelical Christian pastors and authors.



Rubio is the very clear leader, and enthusiastically so. Southern Baptist leader Richard Land recently said, “Whatever charisma is, he’s got it.”



That’s remarkable considering that Rubio is Catholic. Furthermore, Southern Baptist Ted Cruz has actually slipped from 2nd to 3rd when first and second choices are combined, whereas enthusiasm for Rubio keeps growing in the World poll.



Think of the World poll as an informed ballot test. Because these leaders are paying very close attention right now they are a decent proxy for how Republican primary voters will vote when they are paying close attention on election day.





5. After the four February primaries in IA, NH, SC, and NV, Marco Rubio will probably have the most number of delegates.





Rubio’s team has done a superior job of organizing in South Carolina and Nevada.

Rubio’s campaign realized that if he was going to win the nomination, he needed to do well in South Carolina. That’s why all of his top people have deep experience in the state. Per National Journal, “While his rivals spar elsewhere, Rubio is putting a stranglehold on South Carolina”:



Pho­tos of South Car­o­lina’s most cel­eb­rated Re­pub­lic­ans crowd every avail­able inch of First Tues­day Strategies’ suite framed on desks, stacked on coun­ter­tops, pinned to cork­boards along the wall. Here, in the of­fices of the state’s premi­er polit­ic­al firm, the op­er­at­ives and fun­draisers who run the GOP cir­cuit dis­play their al­le­gi­ances to Lind­sey Gra­ham, Tim Scott, and Jim De­Mint. But there’s one man fea­tured more prom­in­ently than any­one else: Marco Ru­bio.

[Much of the National Journal article is now paywalled, but excerpts are available here.]



Likewise, noted Nevada reporter Jon Ralston noticed the same thing in Nevada. Nevada’s leaders and campaign workers are choosing Rubio:

[Rubio] is methodically building a potent organization to make him competitive in next year’s Nevada caucus. Indeed, he is attempting to mimic what Mitt Romney did to win here so convincingly in 2012, building a network of well-connected Mormon activists who could spur a large caucus turnout for him.

This isn’t a shocker, considering that Rubio lived in Nevada for a number of years during his childhood. During that time, he also joined the LDS church. Per Politico:



Rubio is subtly leveraging his LDS background to build support in Nevada, where the state’s LDS community isn’t huge — Mormons make up just a small percentage of the population — but represents an influential constituency in Republican politics.

In a caucus system, this is particularly important: Mormons made up 25% of Nevada caucus voters in 2012. The endorsement and strong support of Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison is key.

Rubio is going to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire – recent polls show him moving up to 3rd or 4th in both states – but he is very well positioned to be the leader going into March 1st’s Super Tuesday.





6. Scott Walker’s implosion means Rubio is the only candidate who unites the GOP.



When Walker dropped out it was a huge boost for Rubio’s chances of being president.



Scott Walker and Marco Rubio were the only two candidates who could unite the party. If you go through the list, every other candidate is strongly tied to one particular group of the party.



Despite his relatively considervative gubernatorial record, Jeb is persona non grata to the grassroots. Carson is loved by the grassroots, but his tendency to make unforced errors scares everyone else. Ted Cruz is so polarizing that he has united his Senate colleagues against him. Trump has a life-long record of supporting liberal Democrats, etc etc



Many Scott Walker supporters, staffers and fundraisers are now switching to Rubio:

At least a third of the bundlers who signed up to raise money for Walker have switched their allegiance to Rubio, while a smaller number have gone with Bush, according to people familiar with the discussions.





7. He is the most talented candidate.





Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Leon Wolf, a non-Rubio supporter, wrote on Red State:

And for whatever missteps or organizational shortcomings (or lack of funds) the Rubio campaign presently has, the simple fact is that he probably belongs in the discussion with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as to who is the most naturally gifted politician of the last 50 years. Which is why, regardless of what the polls say now, if I were a betting man, I would wager heavily on Marco Rubio walking away from this thing as the eventual nominee – especially now that Trump has essentially cleared the field of his main competition in Florida. Let me also add, for the sake of clarity, that Rubio would not be my first choice and I’m not even arguing that he should win the nomination. I am just predicting that he will – and I am increasingly confident making that prediction every day that goes by.

Even the MSM is noticing. Here’s longtime Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz:

In private conversations, many journalists have told me they think only one candidate is likely to emerge from the battered Republican field and overtake Donald Trump. His name is Marco Rubio.





8. Senator Rubio is best prepared to be the Commander-in-Chief.





If you listen to the candidates in both parties, there’s only one who is ready to be the Commander-in-Chief on Day One. Here’s Rubio’s speech on foreign policy to a non-friendly crowd, with Q&A that starts at 46:35:



Here’s a sampling of the praise afterward:



“It felt as if he were taking a Ph.D. oral exam in foreign policy—and he passed easily,” said Max Boot, a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations who has provided advice to Rubio and other candidates in an unofficial capacity. “He never seemed the slightest bit flustered, he always had cogent points to make, and he had a plethora of specific facts to cite in his answers about everything from Iraq to China.” “What most presidential candidates do is just kind of summarize past foreign policy crises to give a Wikipedia page [explanation] of what’s going on,” said Richard Grenell, the former U.S. spokesperson for the United Nations. “Marco Rubio is actually offering solutions and he’s leading the discussion.”

Even Rush Limbaugh praised the speech:

“Have you seen Marco Rubio? Marco Rubio is lighting it up,” Limbaugh said, before listing the reasons for his rise. “And then Rubio shows up on the Council on Foreign Relations and literally ran rings around everybody, including Jeb Bush,” Limbaugh continued. “I read that Jeb Bush’s speech and performance, a Q&A at the Council on Foreign Relations, was not inspiring. He appeared unprepared, a little halting and unsure of himself — whereas Rubio was conversant on anything that was brought up. He was able to answer any question that anybody asked him. His speech was all-inclusive.”





Full disclosure: I donated to Marco Rubio. Donate here.

