It is Super Tuesday, and across the United States, a number off states are voting. As is often the case, the states are a cross-section, but not a perfect one, of the electorate. I will not be covering all the races, but I will feature a few.
The first is Virginia, a state that is a bit confusing to pundits. Virginia is now, more or less, part of the Northeast Corridor as much as it is part of the south. At least, that is the conventional wisdom. The areas around Washington, D.C. are full of highly educated people, and when they are Republicans, they tend to be moderate. The rest of the state can be quite different. The consensus is that Virginia was one of the states where Nikki Haley might pull off an upset against Donald Trump. Winning a key state like Virginia, or Colorado, could reshape the race away from being a foregone conclusion.
The result, however, (currently, with 94% of the vote counted) shows another Trump victory---by 28 points. The thought that this could be a strong state for Haley was not wrong, as she is doing better in Virginia than in other states. The story seems to remain the same--- there are actually large numbers of Republicans who are voting against Trump, but they seem to be a day late and a dollar short when it comes to crystallizing around a candidate. It seems very unlikely after tonight that Haley has any path forward---but the impacts of the distaste for Trump in his own party shouldn't be discounted.