Can Trump win a general election?

TD ^ | 03/15/2016 | Michael Coulter

[SeekAndFind]

This is not an argument for what should happen or what I’d like to happen in the November presidential election, but about what would likely happen in a Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton race: Clinton would win, and probably by a wide margin.

I caution Trump supporters: You can’t just say that Trump will win. That claim must be based on evidence and recognized patterns of political behavior. Crowds at rallies and winning primary elections, especially with only a plurality of the vote, is not evidence that a candidate can win in a general election.

Even if you add up everyone who has attended a Trump rally, that’s only a tiny fraction of total voters in a presidential general election. In both 2008 and 2012, there were about 130 million voters in those presidential elections. And the difference between a turnout in a primary and general election is great. For example, Trump won both the South Carolina and Michigan primaries, but in the general election in those states there will likely be twice as many voters as the number that voted in the primary (counting both Republican and Democratic primary voters).

You could look at head-to-head polls to predict an outcome. Real Clear Politics has nearly 50 polls going back several months which polls a Trump-Clinton race, and Trump has small leads in only five of those polls. In the last month, Clinton’s advantage has been just over 6 points.

But months remain until the election, and there will be barrages of ads trashing candidates.

So how do people choose whom they are voting for? For those people who identify with a political party, party identification is the most important factor. For example, in the 2012 race, 92 percent of Democrats supported Obama and 93 percent of Republicans supported Romney. And in 2008 it was similar with 93 percent of Democrats supporting Obama and 93 percent of Republicans supporting McCain.

Obama and Romney in 2012 and Obama and McCain in 2008 came very close to splitting the independents in both of those elections. So what was the difference? There were more people who identified as a Democrat than as a Republican (according to Gallup). Right now, according to Gallup, Democrats have only a slight advantage when it comes to party identification, so that’s good news for the eventual Republican nominee.

So if party identification is a very important predictor of voter choice, then the way to victory is to get your party to vote for you, win half or more of the independents, and try to peel away some voters from the other party.

But can Trump get nearly all of those who identify as a Republican? I can’t think of any candidate in recent history who generates such strong dislike from some members of his party.

Trump and his supporters can claim that nearly all of the party will come around to support him in the fall, but that seems implausible. Still, assume that most Republicans would come around to support Trump. Even getting 80 percent of Republicans would put him in a difficult position to win.

But Trump claims that he’s drawing independents and Democrats. But the polling suggests it’s going to be very hard for him get enough independents and Democrats to win in the fall. A January poll from Gallup indicated that Trump had the worst favorability ratings among any Republican candidates among independents and Democrats. Trump was net -27 among independents (that is, his unfavorability rating was 27 points higher than his favorability rating) and -70 among Democrats. No other Republican was so far underwater with non-Republicans. It’s not enough to get some independents and Democrats. For Trump to win, he gets a majority of independents and at least 20 percent of Democrats.

Trump, the businessman, should understand you need a plan for winning. In presidential politics you need a plan for winning a majority of electoral votes because there’s only one winner. Attracting a dedicated minority of voters wins no prize.

The Trump campaign is like one of those outlandish business ideas, like personal travel to the moon, that has some potential customers, but it doesn’t have a winning business plan.

[Boogieman]

“His voting results are vastly higher then the claims of “his ceiling” the Hate Trump Always people like to cite based on their polling.”

Not from what I’ve seen. When it was a multi-way race with a dozen candidates, his ceiling (according to polling) was around 33% and his results were around or below that level. When it thinned out into a 3-4 way race, his ceiling rose (along with other candidate’s) and he’s been hitting around 40-50% now.

If the race changes, the polling on that subject changes and the ceilings change. That’s how it goes.

[Leto]

Where was this analysis for Romney, McCain, Dole, etc?

Worthless GOPe turds.
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A lot of us had the same evaluation of them also. However none of them had the name recognition or off the charts negatives among the general population as you will see.

[MaxFlint]

The question then becomes will those Republicans who will eventually come around to supporting Trump reach the historical 93%? Just 80% or 85% won’t do for the general.

It's easy to say you're not going to support the nominee to some pollster when he isn't the nominee. Once there's a real candidate up against a really awful Democrat like Hillary there won't be any problem getting to 93%.

Trump's problem is beating the party insiders to win the nomination. Once he's got it almost every Republican will fall into line, just as they did for weak candidates like McCain and Romney. Add to that the new moderate and Democrat voters brought over by Trump's immigration and trade ideas and he wins in a landslide.