From the inception of this blog, we have warned that Donald Trump could be the Republican nominee. Although there are many explanations and culprits, the reality is plain: In a 17-candidate field Trump had the star power to grab about 25% to 30% of the electorate and hold onto it. He won by leading wire to wire. The crowded nature of the field made this all so easy. Here’s how.
1. He led in almost every poll, over the entire time period.
This was massively consequential. The person in first has a huge advantage over others because people simply like the winner. All the other candidates also believed that Trump would eventually self-destruct and thus the important challenge was not to beat Donald Trump but to edge out other people. His lead grew, his threat was ignored and then it was too late.
2. Trump got second place in Iowa by dint of multi-candidate field dynamics.
The Feb. 1 Iowa caucus was bad for Trump. Polling showed him leading but in the end he didn’t win. Ted Cruz and the Iowa evangelicals were simply too strong to be beaten. Still Trump was able to snag second and avoid the embarrassment of a third place finish. Why? Because there were too many candidates. Trump beat Marco Rubio by 2,262 votes. Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie combined for 11,996 votes. In their absence, Trump would have been knocked into an ignominious third-place finish.
3. New Hampshire became a battle for second place so all the candidates hit each other.
Trump’s lead in the polls for New Hampshire’s Feb. 9 primary was so large that the Republicans there believed he was a lock and moved on to who could grab second place. The consequences were brutal. Marco Rubio, Bush, Kasich, Christie and Cruz turned the guns on each other. New Hampshire became the site of the most fearsome and complicated multi-candidate field dynamics. For a moment, Christie, bolstered by the New Hampshire Union Leader’s endorsement, appeared to be the one who could seize second and the momentum. To maintain his shot at second, Rubio therefore hit Christie very hard over his ethics and the bridge scandal. That destroyed Christie. Christie wanted revenge and got it in the debate against Rubio; Christie claimed Rubio was all talking points and Rubio proved in by repeating the same lines over and over again. Kasich, who believed a second place finish was essential, moved a bit to the left hoping to get it. Kaisch chased a certain kind of unaffiliated voter -- a type of voter who basically doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Republican primary process--and got them. But in the process he was tagged as the moderate. His record was nowhere near as moderate as was portrayed but he never shook the label and damaged himself in future states. New Hampshire also let fourth-place finisher Bush live another week, causing problems in South Carolina. This blood bath could not possibly have worked out better for Trump and it set the tone for the rest of the race.
4. South Carolina still included too many candidates, including the almost dead Bush.
In retrospect, South Carolina on Feb. 20 was one of Trump’s worst performances He received only 32.5% of the vote there. Given its delegate rules, however Trump swept all the delegates. The Establishment block of candidates (Rubio, Bush, Kasich) beat Trump by 40,495 votes. The Christian block of Cruz and Carson came exceptionally close as well. Bush, staying in the race for an extra week, probably did not allow Trump to win. But Bush’s presence likely kept Rubio from a clean second place, as opposed to the basically a tie he had with Cruz, thus weakening his position going forward and likely costing him at least three delegates.
5. March 1st proved beyond a doubt the problem with a divided field.
Trump did not actually have that great a Super Tuesday. He lost in Oklahoma, and barely held on in Arkansas, Vermont and Virginia. He did have big wins in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. It’s worth noting however, that except for in Alabama and Massachusetts, the second and third placed finishers easily combined for wins in the other five states. The problem for `Not Trump’ was that March 1 included a large number of victories for the Donald and kept the opposition divided. After Trump won three out of the first four primary days (Nevada was a Trump sweep with no MCFD points to make), Rubio decided that attacking Donald Trump was his play. But in so doing he slipped slightly behind Cruz while no one was looking. Cruz, not Rubio, had the second place day, aided by Kasich’s continued existence which took crucial points away from Rubio. This was when the Rubio campaign died but we didn’t quite know it yet. Republican rules also aided Trump tremendously. In Texas, a 50% winner-take-all threshold could have allowed Cruz to sweep all the delegates. Indeed, Trump had a miserable result in Texas, getting only 27% of the vote. But Rubio’s 18%, though not enough to qualify him for statewide delegates, was enough to keep Cruz under 50% and allowed Trump to claim 48 delegates in Texas. Under South Carolina rules, Trump would have been entitled to zero. In dying, Rubio handed Trump a huge numbers of delegates.
6. Trump salvaged Saturday, March 5th.
This could easily have been Trump’s undoing. He was beaten badly in Kansas and Maine and just barely edged out Cruz in Kentucky and Louisiana, no small thanks to the ghost of Marco Rubio. In Kentucky, Cruz lost by four points and Rubio took 16%. In Louisiana, Cruz lost by three points and Rubio took 11%. Now some of Rubio’s take may have been the result of early voting so nothing much could have been done. Yet, what we saw clearly was that Rubio voters went to Cruz. This could have been a 4-0 Cruz day instead of a 2-2 split.
7. Michigan was a missed opportunity for `Not Trump.’
If Trump had actually lost all four contests on the previous Saturday, he might have been damaged going into Michigan on March 8. Instead, he took near perfect advantage of the split between Kasich and Cruz, the two remaining serious contenders. Trump got 37% to 25% for Cruz and 24% for Kasich and 9% for ghost Rubio. Kasich got no momentum, but Cruz had nothing great to brag about either. Trump won three out of four for the day (Mississippi and Hawaii along with Michigan, with Cruz taking Idaho). Trump was back on track.
8. Rubio went one week too long.
Because so much of the D.C. establishment wanted to believe in Rubio, it gave him an extra week to try and pull off Florida on March 15. That was a terrible idea. Although Trump had to work a bit in Florida, the state was already his. Trump lost Ohio to Kasich but he was able to sweep the other four states. Missouri went to Trump over Cruz by less than a point, with Rubio taking 6%. North Carolina went to Trump by four with Rubio taking 8%. Kasich also grabbed 10% in Missouri and 12% in North Carolina, probably taking a bit more from Cruz than from Trump. Over the two-week period separating March 1st and March 15th, Trump won at least two states (Kentucky and Missouri) and as many as five (the first two, plus Michigan, Louisiana and North Carolina) because of the continued presence of Rubio and Kasich in the race. Ohio was fool’s gold for the Republican establishment. Yes, it denied Trump the victory, but Kasich’s win meant he was going to hang around.
9. Even Trump’s end game resulted from multi-candidate field dynamics.
Trump had not yet gotten 50% of the vote anywhere and wouldn’t until his home state of New York on April 19. The continued existence of Kasich allowed people to believe that someone other than Cruz, who is not well liked outside of his base, could beat Trump. That proved hugely problematic. In Wisconsin, Cruz was able to win regardless, but Trump snagged six delegates. Once the Northeast rolled around on April 19/26, Kasich beat Cruz for second in five out of six states, making Cruz look weak heading into Indiana. Cruz’s need to cut a “deal” with Kasich, who refused to actually explain or seemingly honor the deal, which made Cruz look even worse. Such strategic voting deals were always necessary to stop Trump, but they were never clearly struck and the voters never understood them. If Kasich had dropped out after Wisconsin, it is not clear that Cruz could have stormed back and won Indiana. But had Trump won less after Rubio’s death, the map might have looked much different.
Conclusion
Lots of things explain how Donald Trump won but the degree to which multi-candidate field dynamics delivered the decisive blow is underappreciated. The continued selfishness of almost every one of the Republican candidates allowed Trump to be victorious. The desire to be the nominee was almost always greater than the desire to stop Trump. Trump took advantage beautifully but the other candidates kept the door open the entire time.
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