Clinton beats Cruz in polling, though it's been closing for a while, it looks like she's opening up again. In the unlikely event of Rubio getting back in, that's the real unclear battle, as he's closed the gap to the point where it looks like that would be too close to call. You're right about Trump though, he's never beaten Clinton.

If it goes to a brokered convention, and Kasich emerges from that, he actually does beat Clinton, and has for a while.

Edit - @yoss obviously.

MEXICO WILL PAY!

I’ve been reading a thing or two about Bernie™ collecting more donations (both in quantity and in total worth) than any other candidate. Possibly ever. Yet it seems to be doing the square root of sweet fuck all for his chances.

Anyone know more about that than I do and care to share?

From memory, it’s something like Bernie has raised $47m from primarily small donors whereas Clinton has raised $30m primarily from large donors (corporate especially).

Is that vaguely true? Because it’s an interesting metric … gives the appearance of Bernie’s appeal to the ‘common man’ actually translating into active financial donation.

poprock wrote:

I’ve been reading a thing or two about Bernie™ collecting more donations (both in quantity and in total worth) than any other candidate. Possibly ever. Yet it seems to be doing the square root of sweet fuck all for his chances. 

Anyone know more about that than I do and care to share? From memory, it’s something like Bernie has raised $47m from primarily small donors whereas Clinton has raised $30m primarily from large donors (corporate especially). 

Is that vaguely true? Because it’s an interesting metric … gives the appearance of Bernie’s appeal to the ‘common man’ actually translating into active financial donation.

The $47 and $30 million figures are what has been raised in February. January was $20 million for Sanders and $15 million for Clinton, which marked the first time Sanders had outdone Clinton. Up to the end on January, Clinton had $188 million to Sanders’ $96.3 million, so going into the early battles had a significant advantage. 

If this keeps up though, Sanders is put on a more equal footing, despite the lack of a Super PAC, which means that he's able to spend in the same way as Clinton, possibly outspending her in places.

Currently Sanders has taken 9 states to Clinton's 13, and 544 delegates to Clintons 762. So he's not actually that far behind, and in theory he should only be getting stronger. Clintons main advantage is with Super Delegates, but she needs to be careful with this. If at the end of the race, Sanders beats Clinton in delegate count from states, and she requires the Super Delegates to give her the win, this could have a very negative effect on the party. Obama needed Super Delegates for the nomination, but he also led on pledged delegates. For Clinton to have a proper mandate she needs to do the same.

Chances are that Clinton will still win, but it's not assured, and results like the above make it interesting.

Yeah nice one Dants. You in this thread have been far more useful than all of the UK news media combined.

I dunno, feels like it could be some IRL foreshadowing.

It's even easier to paint Trump supporters as violent thugs seeing as there's been quite a few outbreaks of violence at his rallies, including some involving his staff. I think only Trump supporters will be blaming the protesters for this.

This really isn't good for him. Being associated with violence isn't going to win over moderates, and Trump is very strongly associated with violence.

Who knows if this was a carefully planned act but if not, Rubio really let his guard down here.

https://twitter.com/hunterschwarz/status/708813220472033281

Yeah, not sure I even follow that.  Seems an odd thing to say.

That's what I was thinking he was suggesting.  And it is an odd thing to say.  Hardly needs said that's there are countless reasons to be anti-"Trump".

It was the Trump supporters response to lawful protest that led to the postponement of the rally though.

IanHamlett wrote:

There are. But stopping a Trump rally is against the rights of Trump supporters. It's undemocratic and it can fuck off. https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/708699103559950336

How would you rate it in terms of democratic-ness when Trump supporters assault journalists and protestors at each of his previous rallies? Is that violating anyones democratic right or not? What about if the assaulting party is the campaign manager?

At least the anti-Trump protesters are peaceful.

I'd agree that the protest is valid as free speech. It is all a bit worrying though. There are bound to be angry white males planning to go armed to the vicinity of his next speech. God knows what happens if this rolls all the way to the convention.

On the plus side, it shows people the end game of his courting the white supremacists.

If they did it by literally turning up to protest? Sure. And I'd say Sanders lacked balls by not appearing and attempting to engage them.

Trump should have took to the podium, and invited one of the protesters on stage to debate him. It's quite likely that Trump would have destroyed them verbally. By giving the protesters a platform, he could have taken the sting out of the event from both sides - the protesters because Trump allows them to air their grievances to him directly, and his supporters because he tells them not to punch people, and they get to see him best the protesters arguments.

It wouldn't have been a friendly meeting by any means, but it wouldn't have ended in violent clashes, and he would have come out of it with a much better image.