By Britt Nelson

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

The big news from South Carolina’s Republican Primary is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has dropped out of the presidential race following his fourth place finish behind New York billionaire Donald J. Trump. Looming on the horizon for all the candidates is the – all important — March 1 Super Tuesday Primary.

Bush, the establishment candidate, had been the front runner going into this year’s political season with the Bush family political machine firmly behind him. But Trump, along with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz beat Bush handily.

South Carolina Republican voters handed Trump a 10-point victory over Rubio — 32 percent to 22 percent. Rubio barely beat Cruz by a razor-thin margin 22.47 percent to 22.24 percent.

Bush, with a father and a brother who both served as president of the United States, only received 8 percent of the vote.

“The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken, and I really respect their decision.” Bush said on live TV Saturday night. “So tonight I am suspending my campaign.”

Just the plain fact that Trump won the South Carolina Primary it is a good indication that even Republicans are disgusted with their own party.

After Rubio’s second place finish, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who ran for president in 2012, will this week endorse Rubio for the 2016 Republican nomination, according to several national news agencies.

Finishing behind Bush were both Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 7.6 percent and Dr. Ben Carson with 7.1 percent. However, both Kasich and Carson say they will stay in the race.

With Bush out, Rubio is becoming the new establishment candidate as pressure mounts for hard-line Republicans to find a way to derail the Trump campaign. It’s no secret Trump is disliked by many other Republicans who have vowed over and over that Trump will not be allowed the nomination, but with one week to go until Super Tuesday that anti-Trump sentiment may not matter.

Meanwhile in Nevada — on the same day — former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won a Democratic caucus vote over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 53 percent to 48 percent. Clinton hopes to come closer to wrapping up her party’s nomination on Super Tuesday.

“Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other,” Clinton said to supporters in Nevada as she congratulated Sanders on a close election. “It can’t just be about what we’re going to give to you; it has to be about what we are going to build together,” obviously referencing Sanders’ large and expensive plans for government-run health care, college and more.

For Sanders, a Democratic socialist, to come within only 5 points behind Clinton in Nevada shows voters are steering away from establishment candidates in large numbers. He says he’s staying in the race and he predicts an eventual win over Clinton in the primary elections to come.

Sanders secured a substantial win over Clinton in the recent New Hampshire primary.

According to Real Clear Politics, an average of several Nevada Republican polls give Trump a 42 percent lead over Cruz whom is at 20 percent, Rubio with 19 percent, Kasich with 7 percent and Carson at 6 percent.

The Nevada Republican caucus vote is set for Tuesday, Feb. 23, where Trump is leading in the polls. The March 1 Super Tuesday primary will be a make or break event for Trump, Clinton, Rubio, Sanders, Cruz, Kasich and Carson. Some 13 states will vote that day. Included are: Alabama, Alaska Republican caucuses, Arkansas, Colorado caucuses, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota caucuses, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming Republican caucuses.

More Democratic and Republican delegates are awarded from the results of Super Tuesday than any other primary election day.

Each political party in each state has its own rules for selecting delegates to the national conventions, which will be held July 18-21 for the Republicans in Cleveland, Ohio, and July 25-28 for the Democrats in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Republicans will send 2,472 delegates to their national convention. To win the nomination, a candidate must get the support of 1,236 delegates.

Democrats will send 4,763 delegates to their convention, with 2,382 needed for nomination.

Closer to home, in an informal on-line poll from the Facebook page of North Americans Living in Costa Rica, Sanders received 15 votes to Clinton’s 1, while Trump scored 4 votes, ‘undecided’ claimed 1 vote and Russian President Putin scored 1 vote as well. In another informal poll conducted this week on the street in Jaco Beach, Trump came in with too many votes to count, while Sanders also showed strong support.

No one spoke up for Clinton or any other candidates. At the beach, it was all Trump and Sanders.

Sanders at 74 years old, a long-time senator from Vermont, has wide appeal to Democrats who have moved away from Clinton for whatever reason. This statement from a Costa Rican resident from Ohio might explain why Sanders has wide support from young and older voters:

“For those of us that are supporting Bernie, we are not expecting anything for free. We want our tax dollars to help us out and to go to help out the country. Instead of giving big tax breaks to the rich and big corporations that make billions of dollars in profit. We want our taxes to go to our infrastructure, not to some war that we don’t need to be in where more of our people are getting killed and wounded.

We want our veterans to be taken care of, not out in the street. We want children fed, clothed, housed, taken care of; same for the elderly. We want our children to be educated, too, without going into debt. This way they can become more productive members of society. We believe that every person has the right to health care. The media keeps trying to make it sound like we want free stuff, we don’t.

We want what we are already paying for and for those to pay their fair share as well. Now, tell me that is wrong,” wrote Cheri Ballard, of La Virgen de Sarapiqui,a rural hamlet in the mountains outside the Central Valley of Costa Rica, where she has volunteered part-time as an elementary school teacher.

In a week, will the Trump train pull into the Republican convention with a load of delegates? Will Clinton overtake Sanders for good? Will Rubio score as the new establishment candidate? Will Cruz, Carson and Kasich throw in the towel? Super Tuesday will give up some answers.

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

About the author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.