Last night’s victory for Donald Trump was remarkable in its size and scope. He is looking remarkably strong. This also puts somewhat to rest the idea that he has a “ceiling” of 30% and certainly casts doubt on the assumption that a single opponent would certainly defeat Trump if the field were winnowed to only one Trump challenger. The Trump can’t win a two way showdown is one of the last myths propping up anti-Trump forces. Through three contests, what we are really looking at is a Republican Party split into 3 pieces. Donald Trump appears to have firmly captured about 1/3 of Republican primary voters. This is what he getting in national polls. There is also something like 1/3 of Republican primary voters who profoundly do not like Trump. They matter, and a lot of them are lining up behind Senator Rubio [with a side dish for Kasich]. But there is another 1/3 mostly supporting Cruz and Carson who are up for grabs. They like Trump and would be relatively comfortable with his nomination, but they are not there yet.
We see this three way split in the New Hampshire and South Carolina exit polls if we look closely. In those states 65% and 72% of the primary electorate, respectively, supported the temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. It’s hard to see that those who find themselves in this right wing bloc would truly be uncomfortable with Mr. Trump. This means the fallacy of consolidation is a myth. Instead, for Donald Trump to be stopped it will require a coordinated effort by all three remaining candidates [leaving aside sideshow Ben Carson]. Here are things that are incredibly likely.
Donald Trump will get the most votes of any Republican presidential candidate. Donald Trump is extremely likely to get the most delegates. One question is whether Trump can get to 50% of all delegates and another is what happens if he doesn’t. The way the delegate math works all three Republicans challenging Trump are both essential to stopping him from getting to 50% but also incredibly dangerous to each other in upcoming Winner take all States. We will be getting into the weeds on the math this weekend but for now there’s much room to enjoy life in Donald Trump’s world.
The Scorecard
The Scorecard is a political strategy and analysis blog. Our hope is to provide information and insight that can be found nowhere else into how and why things are happening in American politics. Unlike many political pundits, we will tell you who we think is going to win as an election approaches; we will tell you why; and we will give you a sense of our level of confidence. Ours is a holistic approach, one that takes in as many numbers as possible but is also willing to look past the numbers if need be. When we turn out to have been wrong, we will let you know. When we are right, we’ll let you know that too.
Our Delegate Math
About Me
Author Jason Paul is a longtime political operative who got his start as an intern in 2002. He has been a political forecaster for almost as long. He won the 2006 Swing State Project election prediction contest and has won two other local contests. He had the pulse of Obama-Clinton race in 2008 and has been as good as anyone at delegate math in the 2016 race. He looks forwards to providing quality coverage for the remainder of the 2016 race.
0 comments:
Post a Comment