the republican presidential race has often resembled the hunger games, with a crowded field of bloodthirsty candidates kept alive by the grace of their patrons on the sidelines. the story has taken a darker turn in recent weeks, with panic creeping in as donald trump continues to step over the bodies of more electable candidates. but with no clear winner emerging from new hampshire, republican donors, who were once ready to coalesce around marco rubio, have pressed pause on their money to see if a candidate will walk out of south carolina with enough strength left to take down trump (and ted cruz, who follows in his wake).









while several donors indicated that they would stick with their preferred candidates for now, others<u+2014>including donors for chris christie, who dropped out of the race earlier this week<u+2014>have no idea if their investments will pan out, especially after what amounted to a three-way tie for third in new hampshire. <u+201c>the feeling after new hampshire is that it couldn<u+2019>t have gone better for donald trump and it<u+2019>s not just the margin that he won by, it<u+2019>s the finishing order,<u+201d> one republican leader who regularly speaks to donors told the hill, adding that john kasich, a candidate whom he viewed as unelectable, had only muddled things further by coming in second. (kasich did get a big boost from former christie mega-donor ken langone, who announced on thursday that he would support the ohio governor.)









that feeling is magnified among bush donors, many of whom had hoped that he would have <u+201c>died quietly in new hampshire,<u+201d> the same source told the hill, but who feel pressured after his slim victory over rubio to give more money. <u+201c>i have not talked to a single bush donor who was giddy about tuesday night,<u+201d> he added. another source noted that their fund-raising outlook was so dismal that bush<u+2019>s campaign-finance chairman, woody johnson, had asked the finance committee to bring in just one $2,700 check<u+2014>the maximum amount an individual can donate to a single candidate<u+2014>per week for the next five weeks.









despite the dual threat of trump and cruz, potential donors for rubio, the onetime establishment golden child, are also sitting on the sidelines after a disastrous debate performance kicked the florida senator to fifth place in new hampshire. <u+201c>the rubio team didn<u+2019>t understand the gravity of the punch he had taken and the need to correct course. that worries a lot of people,<u+201d> the republican leader added. <u+201c>[donors] are not abandoning [rubio] but they need to see him steady things this week.<u+201d>









nevertheless, even as the three establishment candidates attempt to devour each other in south carolina, 85 percent of the donor class and the insiders polled by the politico caucus remain confident that trump will never get the nomination, pointing to their collective firepower (were they ever to join forces) and the fact that his popularity appears limited to roughly one-third of the population. <u+201c>that means two-thirds of the vote is <u+2018>not trump,<u+2019><u+201d> a south carolina republican told politico, insisting that the math shook out. <u+201c>if he has a ceiling, then as others drop out, cruz or one of the establishment candidates can pass him. we are down to six in south carolina<u+2014>let<u+2019>s see if he grows this time.<u+201d>









but sam wang, head of the princeton election consortium, ran a more statistical analysis, and concluded that the math was not as simple as the insiders<u+2019> poll suggests. <u+201c>with the republican field so divided after new hampshire, the path for anyone other than trump requires nearly all candidates to drop out,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>however, after getting 3-4 convention delegates each on tuesday, cruz, john kasich, jeb bush, and marco rubio all have reasons to stay in. under these conditions, trump wins.<u+201d>









trump's path to victory, wang suggests, would be a delegates game: though he has only one-third of the vote on average, that still gives him 50 percent of delegates through super tuesday. according to his calculations, two candidates must drop out before super tuesday, and one alternative must emerge by march 14, after several more rounds of primaries, for a <u+201c>not-trump<u+201d> victory to be possible, meaning that the republican establishment and donor class cannot afford to wait for their preferred candidates to emerge to face off against trump and cruz. <u+201c>ballpark, i would guess that if trump has a majority of delegates by march 1st and he still has two opponents afterward, his probability of securing the nomination will be about 80%,<u+201d> he wrote, adding: <u+201c>however, this is now my intuition talking.<u+201d>
donors to g.o.p. candidates: you<u+2019>re on your own
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