The GOP establishment's years of "relative stability" have been completely shattered by Donald Trump's trifecta of wins in the first four presidential nominating states,
Politico says.
"Suddenly, there are three strands of Republicanism, each entrenched and vying for supremacy in 2016," Politico's Shane Goldmacher writes.
"Ted Cruz is the leader of the traditional conservative purists. Marco Rubio is emerging from the mud of a multi-candidate brawl to lead the once-dominant, now diminished, mainstream lane of the GOP.
"But it is Trump's new alliance of angry populists that is ascendant — and on the precipice of dominance."
In Tuesday's Nevada caucuses, Trump clobbered his two main competitors, taking a whopping 46 percent of the vote to Rubio's 24 and Cruz's 21 percent.
Politico says there is one positive to the fierce, increasingly nasty GOP primary battle — it has triggered a record Republican turnout at the polls.
"[That's] a critical sign for a party whose existing coalition has been mostly a loser at the presidential level in recent cycles," Goldmacher writes.
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