Trump Voters are Waking Up to Reality, and it Isn’t Pretty

[CPUd]

Trump Voters are Waking Up to Reality, and it Isn’t Pretty

Trump Voters are Waking Up to Reality, and it Isn’t Pretty

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary) | March 29th, 2016 at 11:14 AM

Trump voters, by and large, lack the intelligence and/or charisma to actually convince anyone that voting for Donald Trump is a good idea. Certainly, Donald Trump himself is incapable of expanding his appeal beyond his loyal cadre of garbage followers. So to make up for actual arguments for why anyone should vote for Trump, Trump and his surrogates have resorted to overbearing triumphalism since, oh, at least November.

“Trump is going to win,” they confidently crow. “Might as well get in line now.”

See, Trump voters might not be regular Republicans, but they’ve watched Republican elections before. And they have believed Trump’s repeated prophecies that, as other candidates dropped out, Trump would get some portion of their support. The cumulative effect would push him over 50% and he would eventually be an unstoppable force.

We are now almost exactly two months since the Iowa caucuses, and Trump’s more intelligent surrogates are waking up to the fact that it isn’t working out that way at all. As of February 1st, the day of the Iowa Caucuses, Trump had about 37% of the national share of the vote, per the RCP average. Today, he has 43% (note – that 43% includes a CNN/ORC poll that is definitely an outlier showing Trump at 47% support nationally. Trump hasn’t even cracked that mark in a single state yet, so we know that poll is bogus, but let’s give him credit for it anyway.)

So when the first votes were cast, Trump faced about 63% opposition (as defined by people who were not committed to voting for him). He now faces about 57% opposition. In other words, in the two months since the first votes were cast, Trump has consolidated about 9% of the support that was aligned against him to start with. How does that compare to other front runners?

Well, as we have noted before, every other front runner in Republican history (since Gerald Ford) had the nomination sewn up by Super Tuesday, at least until 2008. John McCain was the first Republican nominee since Ford to face a meaningfully contested Super Tuesday at all. But let’s look at how McCain’s path fared compared to Trump’s, per the RCP averages:

As you can see, as of Super Tuesday, McCain faced about 82% opposition. Two months later, he faced less than 40% opposition. In other words, in two months, McCain had consolidated about 50% of the opposition he faced when Iowa went to the polls, and the nomination was completely over.

Now let’s look at Romney.

Romney was an exceptionally slow and weak frontrunner out of the gate. As of the date of the Iowa caucuses, Romney faced 75.2% opposition. Two months later, he faced about 64% opposition. Romney had to fight tooth and nail farther and longer than any previous front runner ever had; however, by this point in the cycle, Romney had consolidated over 15% of his opposition into his camp – enough to sustain an inevitable victory. By this point, the race was over, even if Santorum was still hanging on.

Even more troubling for Trump than his failure to consolidate is that he has not one but two candidates who are on an upward trajectory against him. Both Cruz and Kasich are gaining on him, a phenomenon that neither McCain nor Romney had to face. By this point in their respective campaigns, both Romney and McCain were facing a pack of candidates who were fading or static; Trump faces two candidates who are both gaining on him.

Trump is not going to walk away with this nomination. He is, in fact, probably not going to reach 1,237 – and that’s because he has insulted and degraded almost everyone who isn’t already voting for him, and continues to weekly (if not daily) show himself unfit for the office even as he racks up a huge delegate lead. This reality is setting in with Trump’s supporters, which is probably responsible for some of their uglier antics over the last week, and for why they are already pre-complaining about “cheating” at the convention.

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/03/29/trump-voters-waking-reality-isnt-pretty

 

[CPUd]

 

[Tywysog Cymru]

It's almost as if the establishment GOP opposes Trump, not because he is a threat to their plans, but because he is an electoral liability.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Still- no other candidates are polling as high as Trump is. Nobody is over 50%. Also noting that where the arrow on the chart indicate his chasers gaining more voters, Trump's number has gone up too. One cannot write him off. Early on "experts" said his base would never get above 30% though Trump has slipped a bit since March 30th.

At this point in 2012, Romney was polling 37% with Santorum ten points behind him. (Santorum did drop out the next week- only after that did Romney get above 40%- Ron Paul was at 13%). http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep.../republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

Clinton has been above 50% for a while but Sanders has been steadily closing the gap on her. Her once twenty six point lead is now down to less than five.

It is an exciting race to watch- even if I don't like any of the candidates.

 

[juleswin]

I will make sure to use my one vote to make sure it sinks in.

 

[RonPaulMall]

Lol. If Romney and McCain had the GOPe spending 60 million trying to sabotage them they'd never have cracked 30%. Trump is going to push 60% in New York. Can't wait to bask in their tears.

 

[Jamesiv1]

I will make sure to use my one vote to make sure it sinks in.

I'm going to vote so hard........... I can't tell you exactly how hard but it will be pretty frikkin hard.

 

[Zippyjuan]

General Election Match-up Polls- 04/07/16:

Trump- Clinton: Clinton leads by 10.5 points
Trump- Sanders: Sanders leads by 16.5 points

Cruz- Clinton: Clinton leads by 2.8- pretty close.
Cruz- Sanders: Sanders by 10.1 points

Kasich- Clinton: Kasich leads by 6.6
Kasich- Sanders: Sanders by 2.7 points

But Kasich cannot win the nomination based on delegates earned- he may be angling for either next time or looking for the VP slot since he polls best against the Dem candidates.

If trends continue, it could be Trump vs Sanders in the General Election. (yes, Cruz has been making up ground but can he make up enough ground in the delegate count by the Election? Actually Sanders has the same problem since Hillary has so many of the "insider" delegates though in her race against Obama she lost some of those too- enough to give him the nod).

 

[CPUd]

Lol. If Romney and McCain had the GOPe spending 60 million trying to sabotage them they'd never have cracked 30%. Trump is going to push 60% in New York. Can't wait to bask in their tears.

Pretty sure everyone expects Trump to get 50+ in NY.

 

[CPUd]

General Election Match-up Polls- 04/07/16:

Trump- Clinton: Clinton leads by 10.5 points
Trump- Sanders: Sanders leads by 16.5 points

Cruz- Clinton: Clinton leads by 2.8- pretty close.
Cruz- Sanders: Sanders by 10.1 points

Kasich- Clinton: Kasich leads by 6.6
Kasich- Sanders: Sanders by 2.7 points

But Kasich cannot win the nomination based on delegates earned- he may be angling for either next time or looking for the VP slot since he polls best against the Dem candidates.

If trends continue, it could be Trump vs Sanders in the General Election. (yes, Cruz has been making up ground but can he make up enough ground in the delegate count by the Election? Actually Sanders has the same problem since Hillary has so many of the "insider" delegates though in her race against Obama she lost some of those too- enough to give him the nod).

I think Kasich truly believes if he gets to the convention (in his home state) and makes it past 2 ballots, they will start swinging his way. The state party apparatus and many of the national leadership have close ties to him.

 

[Zippyjuan]

New York Delegate allocations: http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/04/07/five-things-must-know-new-york-gop-primary/

How the New York GOP primary works

New York is a closed primary state and the deadline for registering or changing parties passed on March 25. This is critical and we’ll cover that in a moment. The rules for New York create 28 separate primaries: one for each district and one for the state at large.

For starters, the state’s 95 delegates will be awarded proportionally, rather than on a winner-take-all basis. Beyond that, 81 of those delegates are distributed on the basis of results in the state’s 27 congressional districts.

Trump could gain 14 delegates if he wins more than 50 percent of the statewide vote.

Otherwise, he will share those delegates with any rival who tops 20 percent. In any congressional district where he falls short of 50 percent, even if he has the plurality of votes, he will give up one of the three delegates awarded in each of those districts. If he runs second in any district, he would pick up just one delegate.

 

[Zippyjuan]

I think Kasich truly believes if he gets to the convention (in his home state) and makes it past 2 ballots, they will start swinging his way. The state party apparatus and many of the national leadership have close ties to him.

They might have to change Rule 40 (the Ron Paul Rule) for him to be eligible:

What’s Rule 40?

When people refer to this term, they typically mean the current version of Rule 40(b) of “The Rules of the Republican Party,” which stipulates that at the national convention, a candidate must have the support of a majority of delegates from eight different states in order to win the nomination.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...nt_affect_the_gop_primary_outcome_129012.html

They can decide to do that at or before the Convention, though.

 

[juleswin]

I'm going to vote so hard........... I can't tell you exactly how hard but it will be pretty frikkin hard.

Just doing my part to help Trump get her best pal into the white house. No PC shit for me.

 

[CPUd]

They might have to change Rule 40 (the Ron Paul Rule) for him to be eligible:



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...nt_affect_the_gop_primary_outcome_129012.html

They can decide to do that at or before the Convention, though.

The press is misinterpreting the rule. He doesn't have to "win" 8 states. Go back to Aug 2012 on here and see how it was attempted for Ron, there is correspondence with RNC officials outlining the procedures.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Moot point. They already dropped the rule about the 8 states.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Moot point. They already dropped the rule about the 8 states.

That should tell Ted Cruz supporters that the GOP is planning to drop him - as Cruz has 8 states, and it is to his disadvantage.

 

[kahless]

...

I see you moved on from posting articles from left wing blogs and Progressive think tanks to posting an article from a guy that has been openly hostile to Ron, Rand and their supporters.

 

[twomp]

Its become painfully obvious that the only way to punish the GOP for their shenanigans is to vote for one of their candidates. That will show them!!!

 

[CPUd]

I see you moved on from posting articles from left wing blogs and Progressive think tanks to posting an article from a guy that has been openly hostile to Ron, Rand and their supporters.

I've posted valid evidence which you've yet to refute because you can't.

 

[kahless]

I've posted valid evidence which you've yet to refute because you can't.

I could not get past the first paragraph of trashing Trump supporters, thought it looked familiar and then saw the site/authors name. It is exactly the same tactic he used against us. My issue is with the source. The guy has a history of trashing Ron, Rand and us. He actually banned discussions of Ron Paul at Redstate at one point.

You have been here long enough to know this. Yet you continue to post articles from left wing blogs, Progressive think tanks and now an author open hostile to us. We are supposed to take it as credible???

I do not have a problem with him disagreeing with Ron and Rand on policy. But stuff like this is uncalled for.

You can do a google search, there is allot of history of articles attacking Ron, Rand and supporters. For brevity I will just post from tweets but a google search will yield much more from him and Redstate.

btw - break the embed and link. Don't give him the traffic.