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Trump’s Trump Card: Blue-State Republicans; Reagan Democrats make him a force in the primaries
National Journal ^ | 01/13/2016 | Josh Kraushaar

Posted on 01/13/2016 7:49:38 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Even as Donald Trump holds commanding leads in presidential polling, I've maintained that an establishment candidate still has the inside track to winning the nomination. As my Cook Political Report colleague David Wasserman outlined, the rules of the game are designed to favor the success of more-moderate candidates.

If Trump or Ted Cruz wins the early-state contests, the proportional rules of allocating delegates will prevent either from running up the score. And the winner-take all rules for many of the more moderate "blue" states on March 15 and beyond should favor a more pragmatic Republican down the stretch--at least on paper.

But these calculations are based on a premise that I'm having a bit more trouble accepting these days--that blue-state Republicans are more likely to support the establishment candidate than their red-state counterparts. It's an especially shaky assumption to make with Trump, given the political pedigree of his strongest supporters.

To put it another way, many of Trump's supporters are self-described moderates and view him as the more centrist candidate. (Based on his history of holding liberal positions and past donations to prominent Democrats, they have a point.)

The ordinary rules of the political game haven't applied to Trump so far, and if he lives up to the hype early on, there's little reason to believe he'll fade as the race moves into more moderate territory. If Trump wins Iowa--the one state where he hasn't led in many public polls--it's hard to see where his momentum stops. Such an outcome would prove that his supporters' commitment is much more consequential than his lack of organization. He'd then be heavily favored to win New Hampshire, where he's led throughout the campaign and where the establishment is badly splintered. He'd be well-positioned in South Carolina after that.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: New York; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: bluestate; democrats; elections; immigration; nikkihaley; primaries; southcarolina; trump; trumpwasright

1 posted on 01/13/2016 7:49:38 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Shhhh.... don’t say “Reagan Democrats” to Cruz supporters!
They don’t like that!


2 posted on 01/13/2016 7:52:28 AM PST by ObozoMustGo2012
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To: ObozoMustGo2012

It’s true....we’re gonna need Reagan Democrat votes if we hope to keep the Dems from sitting in the White Hut for another four years.

The Stupid Party has allowed the brand to be tarnished that much.


3 posted on 01/13/2016 7:57:13 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: ObozoMustGo2012
Shhhh.... don’t say “Reagan Democrats” to Cruz supporters!
They don’t like that!

I'm a Cruz supporter and it doesn't bother me.

4 posted on 01/13/2016 8:08:02 AM PST by The_Victor (If all I want is a warm feeling, I should just wet my pants.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Cruzers should read this. The playing field has been set to allow a true-blue conservative like Cruz to take Iowa and some other early states (but end up with very few delegates as they are allocated proportionally) and then bump up against a glass ceiling in the form of the Mason-Dixon line, as the establishment candidate racks up delegates in all kinds of places that won’t be voting red in November (but which award large numbers of delegates on a winner-take-all basis).

That “playing field” didn’t contemplate a Trump, who’s an outsider candidate who actually plays pretty well in the Deep South also, but plays strongest in the industrial North. If Trump wins Iowa, it’s over. If Cruz wins Iowa, then they can take out Trump based on his “bubble bursting”, “lost momentum”, etc., and then they can take Cruz out with a flood of big delegate winner take all Northern blue state primaries.


5 posted on 01/13/2016 8:24:23 AM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
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