The 2012 Republican autopsy report said that Mitt Romney failed to win the presidency because the GOP lacked support from independents, young people and minorities, among other groups. In other words, the party needed to broaden its appeal.
2016 Republicans then nominated Donald Trump. The GOP nominee has narrowed the party’s appeal with each of these groups.
Severely.
Clinton has led Trump with independents in poll after poll. USA Today reported this month that “Young voters flee Donald Trump in what may be historic trouncing, poll shows.” Even though Clinton leads Trump with independent and Millennial voters, both groups don’t like the Democratic or Republican nominees by significant margins.
Many independents and young people in 2016 have been more attracted to Libertarian Gary Johnson.
How might a libertarian Republican candidate be faring right now?
Earlier this month, Red State’s Brandon Morse and The Libertarian Republic’s Jordan LaPorta took note of Rand Paul’s recent Kentucky senate race polling, showing the Republican senator is not only beating his Democratic opponent Jim Gray by double digits, but that Paul is the clear choice of independents and even many Democrats in his state.
RunSwitchPR reports:
Senator Paul receives 76% of the Republican vote, one point better than Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s party support (75%). Paul earns the support of one-in-three Democratic voters (30%) while Gray takes 60% of Democrats. Gray receives stronger support on the Senate ballot from Democratic voters than does Hillary Clinton, who is getting just 54% of Democrats on the Presidential ballot. Both Gray and Clinton are suffering from massive defections among registered Democrats.
Morse observed, “Among voters who say that their opinions do not align with either of the two major parties, 44% support Paul for reelection, compared to 18% for Gray, which indicates Paul has appeal among independent voters.
So in Kentucky, Rand Paul solidly has his Republican base, more independents than the Democrats, and a surprising amount of actual Democrats.
How might Sen. Paul be doing with minorities compared to Trump in a presidential race against Clinton?
Trump is losing to Clinton huge with all minority groups and particularly African Americans and Hispanics (the two largest racial minority voting blocs). Consistently, somewhere between 80 to 90 percent of these voters just don’t like the guy.
In addition to his appeal to independents and conservative or disaffected Democrats, Rand Paul’s polling with minorities has been exceptional and even groundbreaking for modern Republicans.
Rare reported in 2014 on Kentucky polling taken in a Paul-Clinton presidential race:
The new Bluegrass Poll also revealed that Paul’s ongoing minority outreach efforts might be working with African-Americans in his home state. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports “29 percent of the African Americans surveyed said they would back the tea-party senator.”
“Compare that number to John McCain, who received only four percent of the African-American vote in 2008 and Mitt Romney, who won six percent of the black vote in 2012,” Rare noted.
Paul received 13 percent of the black vote against Democratic senate candidate in 2010, a respectable number for Republicans and this was of course before he became a senator and began his minority outreach efforts in any comprehensive way.
