1) If Trump is **not** the nominee, the number of Trump followers who will not vote for anyone else, even against Hillary; and
2) If Trump **is** the nominee, the number of voters all across the country who cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump, even against Hillary.
The question is, which group would be larger?
with a third of your base not voting, Cruz would lose by 15 percent or more.
Better to roll the die with trump and see if he can somehow turn back the tide of women against him in the next six months.
we need to keep an eye on shady Bernie
It would probably be close. What’s funny is the Trump supporters who say the GOPe wants Hillary to win, and at the same time say they’ll refuse to vote for the non-Trump GOP candidate, which then would result in a Hillary win.
I think it is more likely that those who claim they could never vote for Trump will, at the moment of truth, give in and vote for him over Hillary. IOW they may be, to some degree, posturing to support their position. I feel it is much more likely that burned Trump supporters will retain that emotion through the election. ymmv
That’s the billion dollar question. And Hillary has the same problem in reverse.
With Trump, the GOP down ticket survives, even if he would not prevail. I think Trump would beat her or Bernie. His win would need to overwhelm or they steal it by fraud.
Without Trump, the down ticket losses will hand Hellary the Presidency and possibly both the Senate and the House. That might be the only reason they have left for cooperation and support.
The Republican party has been horribly dishonest and unethical with Trump. They never should have accepted Trump’s entry if their ultimate plan was to sabotage his race to the WH. They likely saw $$$ and thought they could fleece his supporters. They planned on grafting money off his candidacy and were shocked to get zilch. And now hundreds of millions of dollars pissed away and more headaches to come. I blame the aristocracy of Bush.
And let's add to that because I think the "never Trumps" and the "never Cruz's" will be substantially smaller come election time than they might be now.
But what about the cross overs? It doesn't seem to me that a Republican candidate could be elected in the general without them given demographics.
So, beside considering which candidate is most disliked by the base, maybe we should also be thinking about which candidate has the greatest ability to attract crossover.
I heard Hillary say the other day that more people have voted for her than have voted for Trump, but I can’t seem to find the actual numbers anywhere. They are saying that around one million more voters have turned out to vote R than D. It’s difficult to know how independents are leaning, since rules vary by state. However you look at it, Hillary will win if anyone that considers themselves to be a republican or even a moderate conservative decides to sit this one out.
You forgot one component that is massive: The number of Democrats that would vote for Trump that will not vote for Cruz. Reagan would not have won without the Democrat voters.