Trump 2nd Place

This was a bad night for Donald Trump because he is a winner and second place is not winning. Plus, his concession speech was inadequately prepared. Saying “I love you Iowa” is not substantive and doesn’t particularly give downstream voters a reason to choose him over Marco Rubio, who also spoke without notes but more intelligently.

Senator Ted Cruz carries the night, but it doesn’t feel as if he has momentum does it? He played his trump/evangelical card, with his pastor dad in the lead. That is not going to get him far in the fiercely individualistic mostly secular Granite State next week. Marco Rubio has major mojo, especially with South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott about to endorse him.

He got a tremendous boost tonight and the world knows it.

This next week will be the toughest slog of Donald’s young political career. How he handles it will determine the future of Trump's race for the nomination, which tonight lost its luster of inevitability.