http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/trump-rubio-cruz-dick/2015/11/30/id/703994/Newsmax
Dick Morris Predicts Trump, Cruz, Rubio as GOP Finalists
Monday, November 30, 2015 11:28 PM
By: Greg Richter
Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz are likely to be the top contenders in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, political analyst Dick Morris tells Newsmax TV.
Front-runner Donald Trump will hold his lead as long as the field remains large, Morris told "Hard Line" host Ed Berliner. But he added that he doesn't see Trump's support going above 25 percent, so a tighter field will hurt him.
"I expect [Ben] Carson to continue to fall off, and I expect that it'll be Trump, Rubio, and Cruz" when the dust settles, Morris said. "The 25 percent Trump has I don't think is going to drop. But I don't think it's going to grow either and Rubio or Cruz or both could leapfrog ahead of Trump and Trump could be running third.
"If that happens, look for a rapid deterioration in Trump's vote because I don't think that his candidacy could weather being third."
Cruz's old enemies are more likely to come back to help him rather than haunt him, Morris added.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's endorsement by the New Hampshire Union Leader on Sunday won't do him any good if he can't get his poll numbers up enough to qualify for the main GOP presidential debate stage, Morris adds.
"In terms of the publicity that surrounds the blessings on the Union Leader, it's always been considered potent, albeit a lot more potent in the days before cyberspace and cable television changed communication in politics," Morris said Monday on "Newsmax Now."
Still, he said, the overall record of the paper is mixed.
"They backed Robert Taft in 1952 and he lost to Dwight Eisenhower," Morris said. "They backed Barry Goldwater in 1964, he lost to a write-in candidate, Henry Cabot Lodge. And more recently, in 1988, very much like Christie, fading from the scene, Gov. Pete du Pont of Delaware was also fading in a crowded race. The Union Leader endorsed him and he came in fourth."
What Christie needs most is to rise higher in the polls so he can reclaim a spot on the main debate stage so more people will see him, Morris said.
"If Christie can't break 3 percent and get himself into the top eight, it doesn't matter how many endorsements he has in New Hampshire, he's not going to be a factor," he said on "Hard Line."
