Perhaps the most telling of this primary season has been the ground swell of support for grass-roots candidates. The two that I have singled out is Bernie Sanders (VT-I) and Ted Cruz (TX-R) both United States Senators. The most intriguing part of these two Senators journeys is that they both started their respective Presidential runs earlier on in the primary season than the swell of other candidates. While we have seen the likes of Chafee, Webb, Walker and Jindal bow their heads to the race, these two men have collected support in the grass-roots. Knowing how the NH primary breaks quite late, it is always important to have ground support in the roots. The winning of the 603 Alliance by Ted Cruz exemplifies that Cruz has the conservative base of the NH GOP on good terms with his social conservative firebrand agenda. This fairs very well with a candidate that seems to be on the up and up in key early states such as Iowa and our state, NH.
The second major player with grass-roots support is Senator Bernie Sanders. This is exemplified with his opensecrets.org page about individual contributions based upon labor unions and individual small donations. This is a ground swell of support from actual voters (i.e if you give money, the more likely you voter for that candidate) As compared to Hillary Clintons support which stems higher on the hierarchal donor spectrum (large corporations/big banks) is not creating the same buzz for younger voters.
It is still early to see what may happen over the next two months but these are two candidates who are positioning themselves nicely going into the FITN primary.
-Connor Brown
Relevant sources:
https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-wins-603-alliance-selection-caucus/
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=n00000528&cycle=2016
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000019
2 comments:
an update from today: this is an article posted on TheHill.com on Cruz surpassing Trump and Carson in Iowa today. Does the grassroots have an effect on Presidential politics in your opinion? What makes a candidate appeal to grassroots supporters in both parties? http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/262306-poll-cruz-surges-ahead-of-trump-carson-in-iowa
I agree with you that those two candidates are set up nicely for the NH Primary. I think this primary is extremely crucial and could flip the race. I honestly think that Cruz and Sanders will come out on top and this will have a major weight in polls. It will be interesting to see.
Post a Comment