Tonight, South Carolina’s Republicans chose Donald Trump, while Hillary Clinton won a crucial victory in Nevada’s Democratic caucus. What impact(s) do these victories have on the upcoming Presidential contests?

Republicans

The Republican race is slowly but surely becoming a three person race; Jeb Bush’s withdrawal tonight has narrowed the GOP field to five candidates. However, each of the remaining five candidates will leave South Carolina with different perceptions by the political prognosticators.

• Donald Trump was the clear winner, with 33% of the vote (11 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor) in a conservative Southern state where 73% of those exit polled identified themselves as evangelicals. He is close to being unstoppable, given that he carried all but two urban counties. Furthermore, his South Carolina win puts him in a strong position to win both Nevada (their caucus is on Tuesday) and the seven Southern accented states (out of 14 states) voting on Super Tuesday on March 1. About the only roadblock to his complete dominance are states with more moderate GOP primary voters who will begin voting starting on March 1;
• Marco Rubio’s (REVISED 2/21 AM) second place finish with 22% (as this article is being written, he has an 1,100 vote lead over Ted Cruz) puts him in strong position to become a credible alternative to Trump, since he has not been firmly pigeonholed as a “conservative” or a “moderate” candidate. However, he has to start winning some contests very soon;
• Ted Cruz’s (REVISED 2/21 AM) third place in South Carolina with 22% was costly to his candidacy for two reasons: (1) he didn’t carry a single county in a state with a 73% (according to exit polls) evangelical GOP electorate, and (2) since he has positioned himself as the most conservative candidate, his  target states are likely to be limited to conservative Southern states. This makes it difficult for him to compete in larger states outside the South like Michigan (which votes on March 8) and Illinois (they vote on March 15). He very much needs an upset win in the next few weeks;
• John Kasich and Ben Carson (REVISED 2/21 AM) both got less than 10% of the vote in South Carolina, thus rendering them irrelevant, although Kasich still has a “lifeline” for the next few weeks if he can win more moderate primary states holding contests beginning March 1.

Democrats

• Going into Nevada, Hillary Clinton’s challenge was to show that she could dominate in a contest with a substantial number of minority and/or union voters – the Democratic “base vote”, in other words. While she didn’t dominate (with 90% of the vote in, she has a narrow 53-47% lead over Sanders), she did show that she has could hold onto enough of the Democratic base to make it more difficult for Sanders in subsequent contests. Furthermore, precinct results from Las Vegas suggested that Hillary remains strong among both black and Hispanic voters, and this black voter strength will help her win big in next Saturday’s contest in South Carolina, where black voters are a majority of the Democratic electorate. Plus, the fact that seven Southern accented states are voting on “Super Tuesday” (out of 11 Democratic contests) will give her a crucial electoral lift after South Carolina’s Democratic primary.

Turnout

• (REVISED 2/21 AM) This was the third contest in a row where GOP turnout broke previously established records – in South Carolina, 445K voted in the 2008 primary, while 604K voted in 2012. GOP turnout was 738K, or a 22% increase over 2012. Meanwhile. about 80K Democrats in Nevada turned out, which is noticeably short of the record 118K who turned out in 2008.