“Something like 95% of voters already know how they’ll vote (even if they won’t admit it).”
Maybe in Iowa and NH, but most people have no idea who is going to be on their ballot and in the race when they get a chance to vote. In Virginia, my choices were Ron Paul and Mitt Romney last time around. I wouldn’t in a million years told you in August that I’d be voting for Ron Paul in protest, but I did. In 2008, it was also sown up so I voted for Hillary in the democratic primary (operation chaos).
So is that a point of pride or shame? You and the other like minded Kamikaze Conservatives handed the election to Obama.
“most people have no idea who is going to be on their ballot and in the race when they get a chance to vote.”
I said “how”, not “who”. The slate of candidates usually covers a certain pattern, and voters know which part they’ll vote for regardless of who’s actually there. Roughly, there’s the “populist centrist”, about 3 viable “hard Right” contenders equally splitting votes (so they can’t possibly overcome the former), and about 5 “no chance in he11” name-makers. The first one wins because the next group, despite aggregating a majority of votes, can’t get an individual to a plurality. The last group gets about 5% of votes, making statements that nobody cares about.
The question is, again, who will run out of money, and who will unexpectedly flame out. Typically the front-runner(s) this early in the game don’t make it to the end. I’m wondering if Trump & Cruz have a deal whereby Donald will bow out when he’s stirred things up the way he wants, having cleared a path for Cruz who otherwise couldn’t have done so (someone _more_ outrageous had to normalize blunt talk before the real contender could take that platform and survive).
Because 95% of the voters vote straight ticket regardless who is on the ticket.