Rice expert available to comment on GOP South Carolina primary and how Scalia death will impact race

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs / News & Media Relations

David Ruth
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Amy McCaig
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Rice expert available to comment on GOP South Carolina primary and how Scalia death will impact race

HOUSTON — (Feb. 16, 2016) – As the remaining Republican presidential candidates prepare for the Palmetto State’s crucial primary elections on Feb. 20, Texas political expert Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University and fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, is available to comment on how the various candidates might fare. He is also available to comment on how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death may impact the race.

Mark Jones photo courtesy Rice University

Jones said that five of the six remaining GOP candidates have targets they will be working to reach and pitfalls they will be attempting to avoid in South Carolina.

“Donald Trump roars into South Carolina fresh from his New Hampshire victory and striving to make it two in a row,” Jones said. “Ted Cruz, who in current polls is right on Trump’s heels in South Carolina, will attempt to take advantage of his appeal to evangelical Christians.”

Jones noted that a Cruz victory in South Carolina could set the stage for similar success in the southern states from Georgia to Texas that contain the majority of the delegates in play on March 1 in what is being called the “SEC Primary.”

Meanwhile, Jones said Marco Rubio’s goal is to rebound from a fifth place finish in New Hampshire with at least a third place finish in South Carolina.

“Rubio wants to put as much separation as possible between himself and his rivals in the ‘establishment lane’, Jeb Bush and John Kasich,” Jones said. “By the same token Bush and his Right to Rise Super PAC are already taking advantage of their deep war chest to hammer Rubio with the maximum goal of surpassing him to finish third in South Carolina and the minimum goal of keeping the margin of any possible Rubio victory as small as possible.”

Jones said that New Hampshire runner-up Kasich is expected to employ a more targeted strategy in the Palmetto State, focusing his meager resources on areas of the state with high concentrations of centrist conservative Republican primary voters, with the objective of being able to point to success winning some delegates, even while finishing in fifth place.

Jones said that it is unclear why Ben Carson has not followed the lead of Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie and suspended his campaign after sub-par performances in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“There is not even a glimmer of a path to victory for Carson, and in South Carolina all that awaits him is vote share somewhere in the single digits,” Jones said.

Jones said that it is still unclear how the unexpected death of Scalia will affect the dynamics of the GOP primary.

“While there is the potential that heightened partisan rhetoric and polarizing positions on whether to move forward with the confirmation process in 2016 or wait until the next president takes office could benefit the more conservative and partisan Cruz and adversely affect the more centrist Bush and Kasich, there is also a real possibility that Scalia’s death causes Republican primary voters to give greater weight to a candidate’s general election viability, that is, their prospects for defeating Clinton,” Jones said. “This is based on the logic that the next president will determine the ideological balance of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is something which would benefit Bush, Kasich and Rubio and adversely affect Cruz and Trump.”

Jones is a leading expert on Texas politics. He has been quoted nationally about Cruz’s political career, which he has followed extensively since Cruz’s days as solicitor general of Texas to the launching of a long-shot U.S. Senate bid to today. To speak with Jones, contact him directly at 832-466-6535.

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7.

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Related materials:

Mark Jones biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/mark-p-jones/

Mark Jones Twitter handle: @MarkPJonesTX

Mark Jones headshot: http://news.rice.edu/files/2014/09/mark-jones.jpg

Photo credit: Rice University

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