As I predicted a long time ago:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/12/08/poll-trump-cruz-rubio-clinton-sanders/76948760/
The candidate who is smart enough to recognize that this election is unlike any other in our history and runs as an independent has a good chance to win.
The candidate who realizes that the Republican party—after stabbing their voters in the back in the last two consecutive historical elections—is dead to many Republicans and bolts for an Independent party will likely win.
The candidate who realizes that the Obama-Democratic party is dead to many democrats but will vote independent will likely win.
Let's see if Cruz or Trump is smart enough to ditch the "we will never support a conservative" establishment RINO party and run as an Independent.
Here is a chance where record numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and other democrats would vote conservative if he were an Independent.
Kill two birds with one stone: A conservative president and the destruction of the RINO party!
I'd be happy with that - although I'm not crazy about Trump. Cruz, on the other hand...
ReplyDelete1. Let's do some simple math:
ReplyDeleteSay we estimate a 137 million voter turnout in 2016.
In addition: "If we apply those percentages to the 137 million people that vote, assuming (unfairly) that partisans vote at even rates, we get about 37 million people in each party, about 25 million Republican-leaning independents and about 23 million Democratic-leaning ones."
The USA Today article says Trump has the support of 27% of the Republican + Republican-leaning voters.
I'll assume the WaPo and USA Today estimates are referring to the same or similar enough groups of voters. I'll assume they're interchangeable enough. As such:
37 million Republicans + 25 million Republican-leaning voters = 62 million.
27% of 62 million is 16.74 million. Thus 16.74 million Trump supporters.
Now, 68% of 16.74 million is about 11.4 million. 11.4 million Trump supporters who would vote for Trump if he ran as an independent.
Sure, there are assumptions I've made, we could argue some of the reasoning, we could toss in other variables, etc. We could play this game all day long. But we have to start and stop somewhere.
Bottom line: is 11.4 million supporters enough for an independent-running Trump to win the general election?
2. Keep in mind the 11.4 million would be across the entire nation. Yet, due to the electoral college, the presidential candidate must win state by state in order to become president.
3. Does Trump have enough supporters in each state to beat Hillary?
According to the USA Today article, Hillary has 56% of the support of the Democrat and Democrat-leaning voters. If there are 37 million Democrat + 23 million Democratic-leaning voters, then that's 60 million voters. If Hillary has 56% of these, then 33.6 million supporters.
Bottom line: just on the face of it - without considering where each side's voters are located, how to win the electoral college, etc. - it'd be 11.4 million Trump supporters vs. 33.6 million Hillary supporters.
4. And this isn't even considering the fact that, if Trump runs as an independent, it'd split the Republicans, whereas the Democrats wouldn't have such a split. The non-Hillary supporters among Democrats would likely sit out or vote for Hillary.
5. Bottom line: if Trump runs as an independent, then it's more likely we're looking at Pres. Hillary.
6. Of course, another question is should Trump be president? My answer is here.
The fact that Trump hasn't promised not to run as an independent candidate if he fails to get the Republican nomination just goes to show that he's more interested in self-promotion than what's best for the United States.
ReplyDeleteHe's clearly smart enough to know that if he runs as a third party candidate that that makes it less likely that a conservative will become the POTUS. But he doesn't care because 1. he's not a true conservative himself and 2. he's more concerned for what's best for himself rather than the country.
These things themselves should disqualify him as an option for any truly conservative voter. Trump doesn't do things on the basis of good principles, but on what's expedient.
A vote for Trump is like a vote for King Saul (near the end of his life, not in his youth).
Correction: The problem is not that Trump hasn't made such a promised, it's that when asked whether he would make such a promise, he refused to do so.
DeleteAlso, it not merely that Trump knows that if he runs as a 3rd party candidate the likelihood of a conservative becoming president is diminished, but that he knows it makes it very difficult to nearly impossible.
In addition to what rockingwithhawking has pointed out, notice that the USA Today story Alan has cited has Trump with a high unfavorable rating and trailing Clinton. By contrast, Rubio is leading Clinton in that poll. As I've pointed out before, Rubio has a 98% rating with the American Conservative Union and 94% with the Heritage Foundation. Are we supposed to think he's liberal or moderate, a RINO, etc.? He has a far more conservative background (and recent history) than Trump, and he's more trustworthy than Trump. Why bypass such a good opportunity to elect Rubio in exchange for a lower chance of electing the less conservative and less trustworthy Trump?
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, too, that Trump is currently benefiting from a name recognition and media coverage advantage that he wouldn't have in the months just before the general election. If Rubio were the nominee next year, he'd have significantly better name recognition and media coverage at that point than he does now. Trump has a name recognition and media coverage advantage at this stage that he wouldn't have later, yet he's doing worse than Rubio in a head-to-head with Clinton.
And why think Republicans and Republican leaners would retain their high view of Trump once talk radio and other sources currently supporting him stop doing so? It's highly unlikely that people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will continue giving Trump so much positive coverage if he runs as a third-party candidate. Then there's the issue of what voters say they'll do nearly a year away from the election and what they'll actually do with a potential Clinton presidency right in front of them in November of 2016. People tend to get more serious and less risky as the time of the election approaches. That's one of the reasons why incumbents tend to do so well. It's doubtful that so many Republicans and Republican leaners will actually support Trump if he runs as a third-party candidate. Saying they'll do so now isn't the same as actually doing it next year.
Jason, how do you reply to Rubio's slanderous tactics in this piece by Levin who documents his deplorable behavior against the conservative Cruz?
Deletehttps://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/12/the-rubio-campaigns-unseemly-alinsky-tactics-against-cruz
Alan,
DeleteYou've ignored the large majority of what we've written in response to you on issues related to Trump in previous threads. You've ignored most of what we've written here. And now you're providing yet another link to yet another article you want us to interact with while you keep ignoring what we've already said. You now have a long history of doing this sort of thing. When we demonstrate that the latest article you've linked is problematic, you just ignore that response and post another link to another dubious source later. Why are we supposed to keep going down this same trail over and over again?
As a gay conservative, I'd vote for Rubio, Cruz or even Trump before any of the Democratic options.
ReplyDeleteThe Left has gone insane with their near total support for abortion at any stage of development and their disregard for freedom of speech and conscience.
The Right has its issues, but at this point it's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.