After a week in which he picked fights with the Bush family, Pope Francis, and Apple, after he suggested he supported Obamacare’s individual mandate, and after he sustained waves of attacks questioning the integrity of his Christian faith and his conservative credentials, Trump easily prevailed in South Carolina, obliterating the notion that the South is any kind of firewall for candidates, like Ted Cruz, who are relying on the Evangelical vote.
The rest of the night will be devoted to Marco Rubio, and whether he can pull off a second-place finish and establish himself, at long last, as the establishment rival to Trump. But the story of the South Carolina primary, and of the 2016 GOP primary writ large, is Donald Trump, who seemingly can do no wrong in the eyes of the Republican electorate.