I don't believe this is correct. Throughout the entire campaign, poll after poll showed that Trump was the only GOP contender who stacked up well against Hillary Clinton.
Most of the GOP contenders would have put the U.S. voters to sleep by now if they had been nominated.
What Medved was pointing out is that both candidates have such a large number of people who loathe them. In an election where it is trump vs Hillary, a trump hater hates hillary so much that he can’t bring himself to vote for her either. But if the Democrat was someone with a lot less baggage than Hillary, just pick one that comes to mind, they would vote for that candidate, even if they were boring. It’s the ol’ lesser of two evils thing.
The reverse is also true. There are a lot of Democrats and independents that simply can’t cast a vote for Hillary, but they refuse to cast for trump as well. If the republican was pretty much any of the people Trump ran against in the primary, they may be willing to vote for them, even if they are “boring”.
This is a VERY unique election. It’s fascinating. It’s a bit of a Kobayashi Maru scenario for a lot of voters, regardless of which side they are on.
The “True Believers” for either candidate don’t get this. At least, most of them don’t.
I have this argument with a #NeverTrump family member all the time. He is convinced that the GOP would be sailing to victory right now if they had nominated ANY of the other candidates who did not have Trump’s negatives.
I point out that they’d be working equally as hard to destroy Bush or Cruz or Rubio, and they wouldn’t be hitting back effectively.