Three Way Race As Republican Primary Moves To New Hampshire
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Jonathan Last, a writer at the conservative "Weekly Standard," looked back at the results of the Iowa Caucuses and previewed what to expect from the three front-runners on the Republican side, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio as the presidential primary moves to New Hampshire.
Last, during an interview on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT with Chris Stigall, said he believes Rubio is the most likely of the three to prevail in the end.
"Rubio, just as a betting matter, is the odds-on-favorite to win the nomination. I still think he is. I think Cruz is probably your second favorite, if you are looking to spread your money around. I thought Cruz's performance was very, very strong. Rubio really helped himself. We've seen this race before in a way. This is what the '92 Democratic race looked like, if you remember that. Clinton didn't win a primary until the fifth vote, lost the first four. But he looked the way Rubio did look. He was the favorite the whole way through even if he was coming second, third,even fourth. So long as Rubio finishes ahead of Kasich, Bush, and Christie in New Hampshire, I really think he has the inside track to win the nomination."
He believes the media is underestimating how strong of a campaign Cruz can run in the next primary.
"Cruz can very easily finish second here in New Hampshire. If he finishes high in New Hampshire, you'll see the rubber band twitch and all of a sudden the media will start saying, oh my gosh, Ted Cruz is now the odds on favorite. Again, I probably wouldn't agree with that, but I think it would really help him here and I suspect the media doesn't really have an anti-Cruz bias any more than they are biased against all Republicans and all conservatives, just generally. I think they're just dumb and don't really look at these races very smartly."
Last thinks Donald Trump is poised to win next week's voting and is still the wild card candidate in the race.
"Trump should win here. New Hampshire is very friendly to guys like Donald Trump. Don't forget Pat Buchanan did very, very well here. He beat the incumbent President in '92. So Trump, I think, he should win here and he should reasonably comfortably. Although, I suspect it will be tighter than the polls look like right now. One of the things about Trump, I do admire about him, is that he was not a natural fit for Iowa, but he just decided, I'm not going to play the normal expectations game, I'm just going to campaign everywhere. I actually think that was a smart, gutsy thing to do."
