US Primaries: Hillary Clinton Gains Momentum, Jeb Bush Falters

The Canadian election is over, and now we can return to more important business: the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The race is finally going as planned for the Democrats. On the other hand, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the Republican camp. But the most noteworthy story isn’t the rise of “outsider” candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson — it’s the downfall of the initial favorite, Jeb Bush.

In two months, Iowa and New Hampshire voters will cast the first ballots of 2016, which will lead to the election of the 45th president of the United States next year (and possibly the first female president). Since the beginning of the year, what have been the most important developments in the two parties’ nomination races?

It’s tempting to say the extremely unorthodox Republican candidacies of Donald Trump and Ben Carson, or the Democrats’ Bernie Sanders. After all, they garnered most of the media’s attention over the past few months. In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders will continue rattling cages and making the campaign interesting, but Hillary Clinton’s victory is assured. It’s a whole other story for the Republicans.

Democratic Party: Hillary Clinton Clearly in the Lead

Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which seemed shaky during Bernie Sanders’ rise, took a favorable enough turn in October to guarantee her the party’s nomination. The only person who could have posed a serious challenge was Vice President Joe Biden. But after Clinton’s solid performance during the last Democratic debate and during the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi hearings, his hopes were dashed. With the near-complete support of the Democratic congressional delegation and a dozen Democratic governors, the only person who can bring her down is herself. She won’t have an easy ride to the Oval Office, however, because both the press and her Republican adversaries will show her no mercy.

Republican Party: How To Avoid the Worst?

From the media’s standpoint, the highlight of the Republican campaign has been the presence of two out-of-the-ordinary candidates: the ineffable billionaire Donald Trump and the African-American neurosurgeon Ben Carson. But their candidacies continue to draw very serious questions. Despite the fact that they’re leading in the polls, experts agree that at this stage, polls are very unreliable indicators of the candidates’ future performance in the primaries, and that it is far from certain that they will stay on top until the end.

Trump’s support still stems mainly from his celebrity rather than his actual chances of being a winning candidate, while Carson’s appeal comes from being an “outsider” who no one really knows anything about, outside of his ideologically extreme statements.

Two months from the first election, when voters only offer the faintest clues to pollsters, it’s more useful to follow the money and the official endorsements from the two parties’ main elected officers. According to these two indicators, the main contender in the Republican race would be Jeb Bush. The son and brother of former presidents has gained the support of 21 House members and three senators. The other candidates are far behind in this regard; neither Trump nor Carson has received formal support from a single notable elected Republican (see here).

That being said, it doesn’t hurt to observe candidates’ day-to-day performance under the pressures of the campaign for signs of improvement, and their ability to get out of difficult situations. From that angle, Jeb Bush’s candidacy has been a disaster. During the last debate on CNBC, Bush wanted to score points by pointing out Marco Rubio’s frequent absences during Senate votes. But it’s Rubio that came out the winner after that exchange, as can be seen in the clip below.

And that’s not all. Bush spent most of last week defending his terrible polling numbers and the cuts to his campaign staff, while his financial backers are starting to break ranks. The conclusion that is becoming increasingly widespread among observers, and what is to me the most important development in the Republican campaign, is that Jeb Bush is quite simply a bad candidate.

While the Bush campaign is nosediving, his two main rivals from the world of politics, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, are gaining more confidence with every debate. Thus, it wouldn’t be surprising to see their polling numbers rise as the first elections approach, which will win them more and more official endorsements from a party that is desperately trying to find an alternative to high-risk candidates like Trump and Carson.

Ted Cruz is probably considered too radical by the party establishment to be a viable candidate. The one to watch over the coming weeks is Marco Rubio, who naturally will have to demonstrate that he’s ready to face the music while all eyes are on him, and he becomes the target of an increasing amount of attacks.

In short, the most important development during this campaign was not the rise of Donald Trump or Ben Carson, but the crash and burn of the man who was the greatest hope of Republican Party bigwigs. Will another solid politician take his place, or will the Republicans find themselves with a high-risk candidate? At this point, who knows?