Posted on 06/19/2015 10:52:26 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At FiveThirtyEight, we like to celebrate outliers. LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers may end up losing in the NBA Finals, but James’s performance has been outlandishly good. In the same vein, I want to congratulate Donald Trump, who reportedly will declare today that he is running for president.
Trump is the anti-LeBron — popularity is performance in politics, and Trump is the first candidate in modern presidential primary history to begin the campaign with a majority of his own party disliking him. A whopping 57 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to an average of the three most recent polls. That beats former record holder Pat Buchanan, who had a 43 percent unfavorable rating at this point in the 2000 election cycle.1 Buchanan, of course, ended up running as an independent.
Taking into account name recognition, Trump’s net favorability rating (favorable minus unfavorable) of -32 percentage points stands out for its pure terribleness at this point in the campaign. Like his unfavorable rating, it is by far the worst of the 106 presidential candidates since 1980 who are in our database.
For this reason alone, Trump has a better chance of cameoing in another “Home Alone” movie with Macaulay Culkin — or playing in the NBA Finals — than winning the Republican nomination.
We shall see...
:D
They probably oversampled RINOS and threw in some independents and Democrats to skew the poll.
I think RINOs are far more likely to support him.
Well duh!
They know who butters their bread.
They're owned, bought and paid for.
Trump is all of the above.
– Over the years, he has consistently supported Democrats over Republicans. Since 1990, Trump has given $541,650 to Democrats—more than he gave to Republicans over the same period of time. Kind of odd for someone who claims to be such a gung ho Republican these days, wouldn’t you say?
– In 2008, Donald Trump supported Obama’s campaign. This one is pretty self-explanatory, but here’s a quote from 2011 for good measure. “I was his biggest cheerleader,” “If you go back three years, I’m saying, ‘Do a great job.’ … ” “I thought he was a positive person, always,”
– Trump has switched parties at least five times since the 1980s. Three times since 2001. Trump is a new kind of politician. He’s what the progressives call “party-fluid.”
That depends on your definition.
I see in Trump, someone unafraid to say America should not be building up China at it’s own expense, and someone who will be strong about illegal immigration.
Trump wants to make America stronger.
He’s the only person saying that. I don’t think that sounds like a RINO at all.
That’s just me though.
Do you also support Stephen Colbert?
One strongly suspects that Mrs. Clinton is coordinating another clandestine counterfeit candidate for the GOP; and, one further suspects that Hillary's Ross Perot counterfeit candidate is Donald Trump.
Trump, if suspicions prove correct, is using sound-bite bravado and false confidence to set the stage for a third party candidacy in order to wangle enough votes to sink us.
The Trump entry into the race has been entertaining.
We all know Trump for who and what he is.
The interesting thing is that he has the —lls to tell it like it is, even if he doesn’t plan to do follow through.
He isn’t inhibited by worrying about what others will think. He just blurts it out. And in many ways, he was exactly right.
His announcement could easily be laughed off, but look at what has taken place.
It goes beyond Trump too.
People are almost angry he jumped in. I see it here.
The media has people all upset over it.
Blogs across the internet are addressing it.
Who will be able to ignore Trump now?
His opinions are on the record.
Now every nook and cranny of society will be unable to ignore the guy.
Now that’s entertainment. I’m laughing...
Folks, I don’t care what the Donald does, it won’t be worse than Obama has done.
It won’t be worse than George Bush did.
It won’t be worse than Bill Clinton did.
He doesn’t hate the nation.
Is he going to be a person who states he’s changed his mind when he hasn’t?
Is he going to vote for bills and say it wasn’t to support what it supported?
Is he going to increase H1-B visas?
Gosh I don’t know what he’s going to do.
Like it or not, that’s what we always get.
George Bush, the first Republican president with a large Congressional majority in both houses in over 70 years, managed to roll back almost nothing of the Leftist agenda.
Gosh, even if Trump tried real hard, he probably couldn’t do much worse than that.
Trump, unlike Perot, is running to win the Republican Party nomination.
Though I was for Perot, I admit. :)
“I think RINOs are far more likely to support him.”
We can agree to disagree. I think the RINO’s (GOPe) have already decided on Jeb and they don’t need anyone else.
The fear this guy elicits is palpable. If Trump is such a joke and a nobody then why is the media going full throttle to ensure he gains no traction?
Yes, they want Jeb. But they know every bit of attention Trump gets brings Hillary (and Jeb) closer. Trump with his white trash version of Stephen Colbert could choke all the conservatism out of the primary.
Yes, Donald loves him some Donald!!!
Here's a thought, would anyone here at FR like to be on the opposite side of a negotiation with Trump?...I would venture to say no...So if he does become the Republican nominee and then the POTUS (lots of slips between a cup and a lip) would you not like him negotiating for the US?
The media is doing the opposite. They want to give him all the attention they can. They want him to take Cruz, Walker, etc. out of the race, and so far he is doing that.
Didn’t your mother ever tell you to “Look, Don’t Listen”?
Who gives a damn what any politician SAYS? It’s what they’ve DONE that counts.
In the case of Donald Trump, he’s switched parties half a dozen times in his adult life, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats, and has praised them publicly too many times to count.
Don’t be so easily swayed by a self-promoting, flip-flopping, carnival huckster like Trump. As the report shows, most Republican voters aren’t.
Yes, and the others are running like h--l for the --cking tall grass.
“Trump isn’t a real candidate”
You mean like Jeb Bush or Huck? :-)
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