If the election were held today, who would be your first choice for President of the United States?Who would be your first choice for Donald Trump's running mate? |
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Posted on 03/18/2016 9:29:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Yeah, as much as we’re all enjoying these fantasy scenarios in which the RNC wrests the nomination from Trump through some procedural chicanery and banishes him to the island of third-party losers, I think in the end they’ll convince themselves that they can ride the tiger. Crown Trump as the duly elected nominee once he has a majority of delegates, be good soldiers for him in the general election, and if he loses as badly as the smart set thinks he will, cross your fingers and hope that some of your new nationalist voters will stick around for the 2018 midterms and beyond.
I think Trump will make it a little easier for them too during the general election. He has zero incentive to continue pandering to his base this summer and fall; he could go full communist and they’ll vote for him anyway. The way to beat Hillary is to tone down the authoritarian nonsense, start talking up economic populism, and do what little he can to sound more “presidential.” In the meantime, though, “I look forward to watching Sean Spicer defend religious tests and mass deportation,” tweets David Harsanyi. “Should do wonders for RNC’s future.” Hey, Spicer’s already started lying about Trump’s prediction of riots at the convention. Religious tests and mass deportation should be easy for him after that.
I wonder how many RNC officers will resign in protest rather than carry Trump’s water in the general election. The RNC is obliged to defend its nominee as an institution, but just as #NeverTrumpers are under no obligation to vote for him (sorry, Huck!), Spicer and Reince Priebus are under no obligation to work for him. We’ll see. Speaking of the general election, though: If the vote in California on June 7th looks anything like this poll, which currently has Trump leading Cruz 38/23, then you almost certainly won’t have to worry about a floor fight and cheating. Every projection I’ve seen from election nerds over the past two days has Trump over 1,000 delegates, and sometimes over 1,100, by the time the last five states vote on June 7th. California is the big prize that night, of course, with 172 delegates at stake. Those delegates are awarded winner-take-all by congressional district, so if Trump beats Cruz consistently across the state, even if it’s by just a few points, he’d win a huge windfall of delegates and very likely clinch the 1,237 he needs for the nomination. Obviously, lots of caveats apply. We’re nearly three months removed from California voting, and the poll, which was taken a week ago, includes Marco Rubio, who’s at 10 percent.
Cruz will pick up some of that. Another recent poll has the race much tighter, with Trump up just five points over Cruz and another 33 percent split between Kasich and Rubio, giving Cruz even more hope. The dynamics of the race, with Trump potentially on the brink of clinching, will also heavily influence what Californians do, needless to say. John Kasich is at 20 percent in this poll but if he’s still in the game on June 7th and Cruz needs a goal-line stand in CA to block Trump from 1,237, some anti-Trump Kasich fans there will switch their vote to Cruz to help. The suspense that night could reach “overtime in the Super Bowl” levels, even though, er, it’s highly likely that Trump will be close enough to 1,237 even if he loses California that he’ll be able to clinch at the convention anyway by mopping up a few unbound delegates.
That is, unless Kasich quits sometime soon and makes this a two-man race. RCP’s Sean Trende ran some numbers to try to gauge just how badly Kasich’s continued presence in the race will hurt Cruz. Answer: Badly.
I ran two different scenarios in our delegate calculator. I won’t give you the specifics, but the general idea is this: I generally gave Trump 40 percent of the vote, to Cruz’s 35 percent and Kasich’s 25 percent. In New England, I gave Trump 60 percent of the vote to Kasich’s 25 percent and Cruz’s 15. In West Virginia, I gave Trump 60 percent, Cruz 25 percent and Kasich 15 percent. I also skipped Colorado, North Dakota, and American Samoa, since their delegations are unbound…
I then re-ran the scenario without Kasich, allocating 70 percent of his vote to Cruz and 30 percent to Trump…
The outcome is fairly stark. Under the first scenario, Trump wins 1,296 delegates and clinches the nomination on the last day of primary voting.
Under the second, Kasich-less scenario, however, Trump has 1,125 delegates, while Cruz collects 899. Given that under the second scenario, Cruz rattles off a string of wins at the end, and given the fact that Rubio’s and Kasich’s 300 delegates would probably disproportionately gravitate toward Cruz, this would likely be enough deny Trump the nomination.
Kasich staying in, if Trende’s guesstimates are right, is likely the difference between Trump as nominee and Cruz as nominee. It’s a 170-delegate difference to Trump’s totals alone. And to think, like most of the other anti-Trumpers out there, I was dumb enough to celebrate on Tuesday night when Kasich won Ohio, denying Trump a 66-delegate windfall even though it guaranteed that he’d stay in the race and continue to do terrible damage. That’s the sort of strategic shortsightedness that’s crippled Trump’s opponents for the past nine months. In a way, we deserve him.
If the election were held today, who would be your first choice for President of the United States?Who would be your first choice for Donald Trump's running mate? |
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[from the coming autumn] "I know what we said -- but Trump didn't GET 100 percent!"
That remark makes absolutely no sense
“I can hold my nose and vote for Trump in the General.”
I can hold my nose and vote for Cruz in the General. After all, I (shudder) voted for McCain and Romney.
Jeez, how many times was Cruz bashed for being a Senator? That one still blows my mind.
I would prefer real discussions about reality but this primary season has had few opportunities. In part because we all know that both sides have a much better plan on immigration than any other candidate and deep down we know there isn't enough detail on either side to deal with jobs but both sound pretty good.
That leaves us with personality, history and rhetoric.
I chose Cruz because personality means little to me. I don't need to like a guy if I know he'll get the job done. I do, however, need to know he means what he says, knows what he's talking about and doesn't say things just to whip up a Crowd.
Good point 94. Makes you think think the Cruz is HOPe crowd is just squeezing their sour grapes.
Nothing Trump has done so far compares to the disgusting, ignorant, tone-deaf, idiotic, insane, and corrupt way the GOPe (and incumbent Republicans in Congress) has screwed over common rank-and-file Republicans - and it wasn't too long ago that Cruz was a nasty, evil TEA Party guy, shunned in the Senate.
Trump is a symptom of GOPe disease, and not a disease himself which needs to be eradicated.
While Trump may not be a polished politician, his message, albeit unpalatable at times, rings true to many disappointed Republicans.
The only "big tent" concept for the GOPe is if Rove gets a new bathrobe. They have been weeping bitterly that they need to find someone who will bring a diverse base to the GOP - well Trump is doing it and they HATE him for it.
The GOPe has attempted political assassination of Trump several times now, to no avail. No matter the outcome, the GOPe needs an overhaul, housecleaning, and reorganization.
Rinse Reince, repeat.
Good answer.
Now let’s see the action behind the words.
Yes, another prepared statement to distract from the quiet plotting going on.
The GOP should rally around the nominee, whomever it is. But I wouldn’t count on it.
All of this is nonsense. I’ve stopped reading this junk for months now.
No one else has people crossing over to vote him.
No one else has people standing in line for hours waiting to see him.
No one else has people from state never thought possible for a republican candidate.
No one else has live showings of ALL his rallies and press conferences.
No one else has people talking about him constantly.
No one else has the same class whether it be his style of dress, his lifestyle, his plane etc.
No one else has the same street savvy.
The man will win the nomination and be the next president providing he stays healthy.
>>Ben Franklin said the idea of taxation is to pluck the most feathers from the bird and get the least squawking. Well, this process is designed to give the best image of democracy in action while giving up the least power.
Very good observation.
>>Common misconception these days. The will of the people is not truly exercised until November. That must not be denied.
Until August, the will of however many, however strange, however errant political parties is up to those political parties.
Your comment makes me remember that this is how it works in the UK. The Establishment chooses the initial candidates, which in effect removes the choice for REAL change from the people, which is EXACTLY what the Establishment wants.
And here I thought it was different here in America.
They’ve been fooling us for quite some time.
I have noticed some cooler heads saying (1) if Trump wins the nomination then the party should back him, (2) the 3rd party guys should knock it off (looking at you, Erick Erickson), (3) the guys talking about bending the rules to deny Trump the nomination should also knock it off.
The worse case scenario for the GOP isn’t Trump getting the nomination. It is Trump being cheated out of the nomination and the party losing its base—permanently.
In my mind any change in the rules of how they choose the nominee voids any pledge.
Wasn’t this what 1776 was about?
exactly
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