NEVADA AND S.C ANALYSIS

Two more down, many more to go.

In Nevada, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney were the winners. Here are the results. For Romney, it was no surprise. The state has a significant Mormon constituency and Romney was the only Republican who gave it any serious attention. For Clinton, it was another example of how she is winning the traditional Democratic coalition, which bodes very well for her going forward. As Jay Cost points out in his analysis, she is winning women, Catholics, people who make under $50,000 a year, and now she can add Hispanics to the list. Obama continues to win upper-income voters, he does well with men, and very well with African-Americans. But he doesn't win the male vote by enough to counteract Clinton's strength with women, and there are still more lower income voters in the Democratic Party than upper-income. While Obama may be able to win South Carolina next Saturday, if Clinton continues to win the traditional Democratic voters, she is going to do very well on Super Tuesday, and will win the nomination.

In South Carolina, were only the GOP primary was held yesterday, John McCain pulled out a narrow victory. Here are the results. Jay Cost also analyzes those results, and concludes that Mike Huckabee did not appeal very well beyond his evangelical base. This does not bode well for him going forward. Still, he might have won South Carolina were it not for Fred Thompson. Ironically, if Thompson stays in for the Florida primary on the 29th, that might actually help Huckabee. Right now the Florida polls show a four-way tie, essentially, between McCain, Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney. Thompson gets just enough non-evangelical conservative voters that might otherwise go to Romney, which prevents him from busting out past Huckabee (as I think Giuliani keeps McCain from busting out, and Giuliani does the same to McCain, as they take from each other).

As it stands now, the only thing standing in the way of John McCain winning the nomination is the possibility that enough candidates will drop out quickly enough to leave only one conservative alternative standing with enough time to reach the finish line first. The only two candidates who can make the case that they are reliably conservative (and more conservative than the maverick McCain) on all the important fiscal, social and national security issues are Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney. It seems that Romney is the only one who can now offer the alternative to McCain with enough money and enough wins in his pocket to make the case that he can unite the GOP and beat him to that delegate finish line. For McCain, the path to victory is to keep Thompson and Huckabee in the race and eliminate Giuliani in Florida. That looks like the best bet.