Posted on 01/03/2016 8:53:05 PM PST by justlittleoleme
Most national polls show Republican frontrunner Donald Trump trailing likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and faring worse than other GOP hopefuls against her.
That raises an obvious question: Could doubts about Trump's strength in a general election derail his bid for the Republican nomination, or would GOP caucus attendees and primary voters simply ignore poll numbers that suggest Trump would be a risky bet in November?
SNIP
But Quinnipiac University's Dec. 16-20 survey showed Trump's image with all registered voters at 33 percent favorable/59 percent unfavorable - dismal numbers, and the highest unfavorable rating of any GOP hopeful.
Trump trailed Clinton by 11 points, 49 percent to 38 percent, in the mid-December Fox News ballot test, while Cruz and Clinton were tied at 45 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio held a 45 percent to 43 percent lead over Clinton. The Quinnipiac poll found Trump trailing Clinton 47 percent to 40 percent, while Cruz and Clinton were tied at 44 percent and Rubio trailed Clinton by a single point, 44 percent to 43 percent.
But not every survey showed Trump trailing Clinton so dramatically in hypothetical match ups. For example, a Dec. 17-21 CNN/ORC survey showed the two candidates separated by only two points (Clinton 49 percent, Trump 47 percent). Of course, Cruz held a 2-point lead over Clinton and Rubio a 3-point lead in that survey, seemingly confirming that Trump is a weaker nominee against Clinton than at least two other Republican hopefuls.
But even if additional surveys between now and the Iowa caucuses show Trump's relative weakness in the general election, it is not yet clear that GOP voters - and Trump voters - will care. Opinion about the importance of "electability" as an issue for voters has been divided over the years.
(Excerpt) Read more at 3.blogs.rollcall.com ...
I don’t know. I thought I was hearing two weeks ago he was nearly tied with Clinton in a poll. The numbers are fickle. Too many polls are conducted anyways. People also said he wasn’t firing at Clinton yet, since then in the past week he started, and that some people don’t respond to polls. Then others said he was gaining ground. So I wanted to chime in that it is too early to just throw in the towel.
and Hillary IS electable??
Sounds like the poll is telling us a lot of the flaming hot Trumpsters are in reality Clintonites in Trumpster drag.
Got more than a few here.
Understand, politics today, are not about the person, party loyalty trumps all.. if you think a hard core democrat or republican will not vote the candidate regardless of who it is, you are foolish.
They will either vote for them or stay home, but they won’t cross the line.
Hillary is a horrible candidate, no doubt, but if you put up any republican who is remotely connected to the establishment you will wind up with her carrying most of the same states Obama carried.
The election will effectively boil down to the GOTV efforts in a few states.. because there is no effective structural change being offered to the voters.
They could take out their anger at Obama on Hillary and you may get more than a handful to flip... but voter anger didn’t stop Obama from a second term so I wouldn’t bet on that.
If Republicans want to win they have to fight, and FIGHT HARD, politics are blood sport and the establishment plays it like its nerf football. Because they have no real desire to change the underlying system, just stay in power... they would rather see Hillary win and Republicans lose than see someone who truly threatens the system win.
Reality is, a Rubio or a Cruz or anyone else V Hillary and the Hillary is in the race, no matter what folks say. It will not be a blowout, even though she is a terrible candidate. It will boil down to republicans trying to flip a handful of states, and I am dubious after Mitt couldn’t even muster the same votes as McCain that they will be able to do it.
Trump cracks the map wide open, which is what scares both sides so much. If he wins, he will win huge, and if he wins, he’s a huge threat to the political class on both sides of the isle because he can’t be controlled by the money men.. who effectively all want the same general things, but put different lipstick on their pigs, as they screw over the American people.
Don’t underestimate Hillary, she’s a disaster and in a sane world Democrats would never put up such an unlikable, corrupted candidate, but the days of sanity left politics long ago. Beating her should be a cakewalk, but it won’t be if the Republican party stands for nothing different other than matters of degree with the democrats, which is effectively where the GOPe has been for decades now.
They mean that the left media hasn't unloaded on Cruz... yet. If he's nominated the gloves come off and they'll paint him as a greedy fanatic who combines all the worst qualities of Gordon Gecko and Jerry Falwell.
If it works he goes down like Goldwater.
When Trump starts RUNNING against Hillary he’ll do the same thing to her he did to Bush... he’ll show us who she really is... and it’ll be O-VAR.
Of course, there's no reason you have to believe the polls, but if that's the case, then it should apply equally to polls showing he leads the GOP field. You can't fairly tout polling when it shows him in the lead for the nomination, but condemn it when it shows him doing less well in the general election.
That being said, I think he's probably going to win the nomination anyway. And if he doesn't, many of his supporters probably won't vote for whomever the nominee is. So, I don't think electability is going to play much of a role in the primaries.
To Cruz supporters, I ask you this, look at the 2012 map, and tell me what states do you think Cruz puts into play, and which states you think honestly he will flip?
I’ve looked at the map, and while I can live with a Cruz presidency, I don’t see him flipping 64 EC votes or whatever it is that he needs to from the 2012 election.. I just don’t see it.
I see Cruz winning by larger margins in states Republicans already hold, but that doesn’t get you any more EC votes..
Even if you flip FL, OH and VA, and I am dubious about VA, its become a liberal haven anymore, you still don’t get to 64 you wind up trying to nailbite IA or CO or something... if you don’t get VA, your path is nearly impossible...
I don’t see any GOP candidate, with the exception of TRUMP opening the map in a way that makes a win, I really don’t. I don’t want to head into an election where best case scenario is a possible nail biter when that’s your best case scenario, all it takes is one thing not to break your way and you lose... a foolish strategy.
I want to see that map opened up... and I just don’t see how any GOP candidate, with the exception of Trump, who will put states into play that haven’t been in play for decades, that you get there.
Think of all the national and international polls that have been wrong in the past few years! Look at Trumps Rallies as they are unlike any other candidate out there! Today’s polls are nothing but dems frauds trying to impact US voters and they aint working. Trump Cruz, Cruz Trump, it’s all good to me.
It’s not cast in stone that Hillary will be the nominee. She has major, serious health issues. Why was she recently two hours late for one of her relatively few campaign rallies? There was no explanation offered.
THIS!
As reading your post EYE OF THE TIGER from Rocky III came on. No lie!
Trump is so far beyond any other candidate running it's not even a contest. This is a man who nullified John Kasich's threatened 1.5M ad blitz with a dozen tweets.
U can't touch this!
TRUMP is more popular than the polls claim because people are keeping quiet but will pull the lever for TRUMP for sure.
If you were at any of his rallies you’d know you speak bullshit! I saw no union buses at his November rally here in Raleigh. I saw thousands of individual cars and people waiting to see someone who actually loves America and wants America to be great again. BTW it took me at least 45 minutes to get out of the Fair Grounds parking lot:-)
Sanders draws larger and more enthusiastic crowds than does Hillary, but the bulk of the left is supporting her because they consider her more electable. As nasty as she is, she's got demographic advantages that an old white socialist man with a heavy New York accent doesn't.
Enthusiasm is an an indicator of depth of support, not breadth. And in the end, all that matters is the numbers.
Agreed, Hillary has a hard time winning when you have to make an argument on why to vote for Hillary, but you provide a boogie man for the other side, then its not a matter of convincing folks to vote for Hillary, its just a matter of painting the other guy as the boogie man.
Cruz is probably the easiest Candidate for the left to paint as the boogieman... like it or not, his actions during the shutdown will easily be used to paint him successfully as such, particularly among the retiree set. The US was literally days from defaulting when the shutdown ended, and don’t think retirees don’t know that... and I don’t care what Shawn Hannity told you, yes, the revenues coming in were NOT enough to make the bond payments due and the other obligations due at the end of the month.
Cruz has the biggest electability issue of the top candidates IMHO. I may agree with him on many policies, but I don’t see him winning a general election. I know I will catch hell for that statement, I always do, but its how I see it.
And vote ill-ary I’m sure:-)
Gee wonder if there is any reason why they would be beating the “Trump can’t beat Hillary drum”. Because they desperately don’t want Trump facing off on Hillary. It will be a very ugly campaign and she won’t have the stamina to go the length against the withering attacks of Trump. Of course she’ll have the media on her side, but we’ve seen how ineffective that’s been on Trump. That’s why they don’t want him to be the nominee against Hillary.
As the primaries edge closer, expect to see more and more of these. It’s almost like an alternate reality.
There is definitely some inverse Bradley effect going on around Trump.... While Trump may not be everyone’s first choice, more folks are more than willing to vote for him, over Hillary, but its a very politically incorrect stand to advocate in many situations, so folks just quietly shut up, or say something else when asked about it.
I’ve had more than a few conversations where people have publicly mocked Trump in a group or work setting, only to admit privately, they will vote fro him without hesitation if he’s the nominee.
Nah, most Trump supporters aren't ashamed to support him. If the polls are underestimating his support (they probably are) it's because they're cooking the results by manipulating the weighting of the various demographics.
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