Nate Silver made some forecasts back in late 2015 for his fivethirtyeight site that were great. They were great were this a normal election. It isn’t. Nate Silver is amazing at his predictions and analysis. The fact that he was wrong about Donald Trump, shows just how far off the rails this whole primary season has gone.
It was thought that this path to the nomination would go just like the past election cycles where the nut jobs that are Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee led into Iowa, won with the heavy 2/3 Evangelical Republican voting bloc in that state and then quickly faded away. Normally that makes perfect sense. Candidates that have often lead that early in the race haven’t lasted long due to the extra scrutiny the leader receives. It is hard to keep piling up chips at the poker table when everyone is gunning for you.
This time is really, really different.
No matter how much the other contenders aim at Donald Trump he has seemed to come back in such an unconventional manner that his supporters become more excited. No matter how un-presidential the man is, the more he appeals to his base as an outsider the more they think the country desperately needs him.
Trump didn’t win Iowa, Cruz did, but he was a close second and then smashed everyone else in New Hampshire. Only two states have voted and many delegates remain to be won in order to shore up the nomination, but Trump has momentum and some statistics on his side at this point.
He is going into South Carolina with the forecasted chance of winning at 83%. That’s big. As Super Tuesday approaches there is a strong likelihood that Trump will capture the majority of delegates as well.
In head-to-head match ups with either Cruz or Rubio, Trump loses or is even. As long as the votes are split between only two candidates. With multiple candidates in the field, he wins. It looks like that by the time enough candidates exit the Republican death match (insert monster truck announcer voice here), his delegate lead will be insurmountable.
The Republican establishment really doesn’t want this to happen. They see the potential of Trump alienating enough people to be tantamount to having a blackened lung picture next to every candidate with an R next to their name on the ballot.
Recent polls actually show Rubio beating Clinton by 4.7 – 7 percent in a general election. Those same polls show Donald Trump losing by anywhere from 2 – 4 percent. Recent polls even show Rubio beating Trump by several percentage points, if only the two of them were in the race right now.
Republicans need the other guys out of the race. Now. The chances of Cruz leaving anytime soon are slim. It is impossible to get him to leave a race when he believes God called him to be there and that moderate Republicans have given into socialism by willingness to compromise on rare occasions.
And so it is that the field will remain fractured. The coming primaries are mostly winner takes all. That winner will be Donald Trump.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to a race where Donald Trump becomes the candidate for President.
Featured image courtesy of Youtube
Brian McKay has his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Gonzaga University and his MBA from Boise State University. Although he never ended up cooking fast food fries at McDonald's, he has been damn close at times. Too close. His greatest success recently is seeing his 12-year-old daughter really get into Nirvana. She is just awesome.
