The US major party nomination fight, both with Republicans and Democrats, is not won by national polling, its not won by state-wide polling. Its not won by wnning debates nor is it even won by collecting campaign donations. The race is won by collecting the most delegates. That delegate count is the only thing that matters, but it is complex and cumbersome, difficult to decypher, differs between both parties, and changes every year. It also is not yet even fully set in all its details, for 2016. So most pundits focus on the 'easy stuff' of polling or fund-raising or debate performance. Yet all of that doesn't matter, its the delegate count that matters. (Yes, this blog is about politics, not my usual topic of mobile and tech. If you are interested in my thinking about the 2016 election, please follow me across the fold.)
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(Welcome back)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
This blog is a deep, detailed analysis, that is based on actual delegate counts per state, and a model allocating those delegates based on current polling and reasonable assumptions going forward, that for example those candidates who have almost no funds, will have to quit soon; and that by election time, states that have their own candidate running, will tend to give votes to their own, rather than who happens to be a polling leader today .And so forth. This analysis concludes that because of the way the 2016 Republican race is organized, in particular how many states will award their delegates 'proportionately' rather than 'winner-take-all'. This structural factor is combined with an unprecedentely wide field, where at least 8 candidates are viable through March 15, and expected to be adequately funded also up to that date. It means that by the middle of March, no candidate can take an actual delegate total more than 30% of those awarded. When the remaining states are then calculated, the math tells us that no candidate can win the nomination before June, and the most likely scenario is that no candidate gets a majority of delegates, and the winner only gets a plurality. This means that a 'brokered convention' is more likely than not. Please read the full analysis to understand all the specifics.
ITS ALL ABOUT THE DELEGATES
The race is for delegates. In 2012 Rick Santorum polled poorly before Iowa, he raised barely any cash and most thought he was an afterthought in the election. The Iowa Caucuses were initially called to be a Romney win, but later the party said it was actually a tie, and then revised its count again, admitting Santorum had won the most votes in Iowa. This is pretty well known. What is less remembered, is that as Iowa actual delegate allotment was done at a later date, it was Ron Paul who had perfected the techniques of maximising caucus delegate hunts, and yes, Ron Paul actually won Iowa, by getting the most delegates. Check out the final delegate count of Iowa in 2012. Ron Paul took 21, Romney got 1, Santorum no delegates out of Iowa. 3 delegates were 'at large' or not allocated. This is what really decides the US nomination process (and exactly the same for Democrats, except that the two parties have differing details on the total number of delegates and even the proportion of how many delegates are awarded per state).
The delegate math is depended on a vast array of ever-changing factors (and rules). Is that state a 'caucus' state or a 'primary' state. Is that process 'open' or 'closed'. Do the delegates get awarded 'winner-take-all' or 'proportionately'. How many 'superdelegates' are there and who gets those, etc. These are not clear, they change from election to election and are different across the parties. Still for 2016, the Republicans have not finalized their primary/caucus calendar, so about a dozen states/regions have not yet announced when they will hold their nomination election. So it is understandable that most pundits stay away from the 'hassle'' of the complex delegate math, it is math after all, and rather stay with the far easier story of the 'horse race' of who is ahead in the polling.
But this blog loves math and loves going deep into understanding complex matters. So this is, as far as I know, the first full delegate count attempt, for the Republlcan race of 2016, what will actually decide that race (on the Democratic side there is no contest, even many Republicans now concede, Hillary is coasting to an easy win on the Democratic side). As to this article? Long article warning: it runs over 11,000 words so this would be as long as a whole chapter in one of my hard-cover printed bestselling books in tech. It will probably take you half an hour just to read this.
THE TABLE HAS BEEN SET
The Republican race is now set, we know who will be in it and have seen enough of the various elements to know a bit about each candidate or campaign. We've seen national polling. That is highly questionable for its value in determining who will win, this far out before the first actual votes in Iowa in February. But its the simplest, easiest way to simplify the complex issue of the race. It is mostly a name recognition race where usually the well-known names with strong political visibility in that party, have the biggest showing, early on. Witness Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan and Chris Christie in the early polling at the start of the year. Then there are rising stars who time their media exposure well, and have good showing, like Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Some candidates are known celebrtities from outside of Politics (Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina) and others are insider-favorites with intense partisan support by a loyal base (Dr Ben Carson, Rand Paul). And there are usually some fantasy-candidates who are desired but often do not show up (Mitt Romney this cycle). The national polling is incredibly volatile depending on who gets into the news cycle, and this year has been totally dominated by Donald Trump ever since he announced. But national poling is the least accurate of indicators.
The state-by-state polling is significantly more indicative of how a candidate performs in that particular state. No delegates are awarded nationally, all are awarded by a state (or region like Guam and Puerto Rico). So Iowa is a Middle-America rural farm state, with strongly religious conservative voters. New Hampshire is a Northeastern 'liberal' state, while South Carolina is a Southern state with a lot of military voters, and Nevada is a Western state with a lot of Hispanic voters. Each of the first four nominating states has a distinct voter composition that is quite different from each other, and very often the winners of Iowa and New Hampshire are different candidates. These first four states do get frequent polling and we can make some delegate determinations based on those states and how the candidates are polling inside those states.
Note that some candidates poll very well in one and poorly in another. Ohio Governor John Kasich polls well in New Hampshire at 8% but only half that in Iowa, 4% (by Real Clear Politics average of recent polling). Contrast to Mike Huckabee who also gets 4% in Iowa but only 0.3% in New Hampshire. And did you know that Iowa awards 30 delegates to the Republican race but New Hampshire only 23 delegates. So the 'polling lead' in Iowa is 30% more valuable (to winning the delegate hunt) than the same polling position would be in NH. Oh, and what about South Carolina. They award 50 delegates, meaning that SC alone awards almost as many delegates as the first two states, combined (53).
Because recent polling is available for many states, it would be far more useful to construct a 'comprehensive' state-by-state model, that indicates the propensity to win delegates, based on each State's latest polling and adjusting that for the number of delegates that is awarded in that state (and note, this is not directly in relation to the number of voters in that state, there are further complications especially on the Republican side, where they give more delegates to states that have Republican control of that State vs those states that have Democrats in control). Well, such a model would be a cumbersome beast, would take some serious econometric modelling chops and still, be a one-off vehicle that won't do anything good for the Democratic race this time, nor help understand Republicans in 2012 or 2020, only this one race in 2016. So most don't bother. But I have good news for you.. :-)
So then apart from the polling, we see the candidates for the first time, in the same controlled event, side-by-side in the debates. Often some 'strong' candidates turn out to be pretenders when forced to stand alongside the rivals (Governor Oops in 2012 and briefly again in 2016, or now consider Democrat Lincoln Chaffey). Once the debates start, the electorate has a way to compare and contrast, and the pre-season 'name recognition race' turns into a more valid race of the merits of each candidate and their positions. So for example on the Democratic side, their first debate just showed that Hillary Clinton is still the campaign pro who is a formidable foe. On the Republican side witness the strong debate performance of Carly Fiorina and to a lesser extent Marco Rubio, both of whom have seen a strong rise in their support since the debates started. The debates while certainly flawed in many ways as a vehicle to learn and know candidates and a skill in mastering a debate stage bears very little relevance to how a given candidate would do in office, but it is the only instance we have, in modern politics, to see the rival candidates on the same stage, and at times, challenging each other. Yes its political theater but it does expose strong candidates and weak ones, and gives us a chance to compare the rivals. In this year's field, Rand Paul has been spectacularly weak in the first two debates and Jeb Bush has shown he is far from the inevitable candidate that his campaign wanted to present to donors.
The part of the race that is mostly hidden from view, and which is always the least covered part, is the fund-raising race, often called the 'invisible primary'. The US election system is frightfully expensive, the higher the office the more expensive it is. Each cycle the elections become more expensive. This year the total money spent by the two finalists who run for President as a Republican and Democrat, will have spent more than a Billion US dollars in the campaigning for 2016, when nomination fight and general election is counted. The full election, with Senate, Congress, and various state-wide offices, is added, will be several Billion dollars more in total cost. Last week was the filing deadline for the past quarter, and for the first time the full field (excepting for possibly Joe Biden on the Democratic side, if he decides to run) has filed those returns. So we know that of the 'establishment' candidates on the Republican side (traditional politicians) Jeb Bush is the strongest in fund-raising, he achieved 13.4 million dollars in the past quarter. Thats twice what Marco Rubio was able to raise, for example. But the outsiders did better. Dr Ben Carson raised 20.8 million dollars and Donald Trump? While he is self-funding and has no requests for donations, ie essentially without trying, he raised nearly 4 million dollars (essentially by selling his Make America Great Again hats).
Fund-raising will not win you the nomination but a lack of success in fund-raising will starve your campaign and you have to quit. We've seen that with Rick Perry and Scott Walker already. From their fund-raising despair, we know that Governors Bobby Jindal and George Pataki are already toast, as is Rick Santorum. But also, from the fund-raising capablity, we see that Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich do have a solid funding base, where even as their polling currently shows them near 10th ranking, they aren't forced to quit the race before the early primary votes are counted. The money race tells us who is viable and who is not. It separates the boys from the men, so to speak (with apologies to Carly and Hillary, obviously the women are in it, easily; and Hillary raised the most funds of any candidate on either side, in the quarter).
MY MODEL DEPTH AND DETAIL
So yes. Nobody has - as far as I can tell - yet in 2016 published a national comprehensive estimate of the delegate race (on either side) for the nomination. On the Democratic side, as I said, there is no real contest, so its not necessary. In most years, there is a clear front-runner who locks up the race early, and a delegate count is not really that relevant. But the longer the race goes without a winner, the more important the delegate count becomes. Just eight years ago, the 2008 race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went all the way to the last vote, with both amassing delegates. I warned in my Republican Nomination fight preview, in February of 2015, on this blog, that we may see a long nomination fight this year. That was months before Trump had entered the race and I was not basing my projection on the disruption created by the three outsider candidates, Trump, Carson and Carly Fiorina..But now, that we have the main pieces of the pie, we can actually do a preliminary model to run out some scenarios of how the Republican race might pan out, and the conclusion is very clear. This nomination fight in 2016 will run at least to June without a nominee; and it may well run all the way to the Convention without a nominee selected. We may see a 'brokered convention' or just before the convention, a wild scramble of deal-making to decide which of the front-runners gets to be the Presidential nominee and who would be Vice President. So lets get to my model so you understand.
The first four states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, all vote in February, and will award 133 delegates of the total of 2,470 (or if one candidate were to win every delegate in those four states, it would be 10.8% of 1,236 needed to clinch the nomination). These four states award their delegates proportionately. Because so many candidates are running (and remain viable, note fund-raising in the above) and as there is no clear front-runner (even Trump's current standing is barely above that of Dr Ben Carson) this early haul of delegates will be incredibly widely dispersed, and thus diluted. The 'leader' in delegate count on the last day of February will have the smallest proportion of all delegates awarded so far, of any recent campaign. If Trump is in it, I have him with 42 delegates. If Trump quits before Iowa, then I have Rubio leading the race after the first four states, with 40 delegates. So the leader by my preliminary model will only have about one third of total awarded delegates after the first four contests. Compare to 2012, when Mitt Romney had taken 60 delegates of the first 111 alwarded so he had 54% of the total available. You see how much 'worse' this season is, for establishing a lead.
Early March has a huge bunch of states on March 1, called the SEC Primary for some college football sports analogy I guess (I don't follow college football). Twelve states will decide on that day, awarding more than four times the total delegates up to that point. 624 delegates will be awarded including the second biggest contest, Texas with 155 delegates (California is even bigger, but it votes in June). Mike Huckbee's home state Arkansas votes that day and now that Rick Perry is out of it, Ted Cruz has Texas to himself as the favorite to win his home state. Because so many states vote on the same day, its very likely that most candidates will 'prioritize' states where they can win, so they will probably not bother to even try to contest Arkansas or Texas. And as so many states vote on the same day, TV advertising will play a disproportionate role on that day, so the campaigns with a lot of money (Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz) are likely to overperform vs modestly-funded campaigns. But all these states award their delegates proportionately, which further prevents any one strong candidate from building an insurmountable lead.
More states vote in early March which includes Kentucky, Rand Paul's home state where he should do particularly well and Louisiana where Bobby Jindal will not even be on the ballot anymore as his money will have run out months ago. 271 more delegates come from the votes on March 5, 8 and 13. And these states too, will all award delegates proportionately.
March 15 is when the crushing decisions start to roll in. That is when states become 'winner-take-all' states, where one winner of the state will take all the delegates. Florida votes on 15 March, and that is likely going to be an early 'elimination round' between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. One of them wins the state, takes its 99 delegates and continues in the nomination contest. The loser of Florida, which may be only by a thin slice of the electorate, takes 0 delegates from Florida. That candidate, Bush or Rubio, who loses his home state, one that is vital for the Republicans to win the White House (to simplify the 2016 general election race, the Republicans will essentially need to win two of the three biggest swing states, Ohio, Florida and Virginia). March 15 also features the race in Ohio, and its highly likely that however well or poorly John Kasich has done up to that point, he wins his home state easily. And it means, Kasich gets a boost of 66 delegates and jumps back into the race.
On March 15 a total of 358 delegates will be awarded, and this could theoretically be the knock-out day, when one candidate suddenly establishes a dominance of the field. Except this time that will not happen, as Florida will be the run-off race between Bush and Rubio (and nobody else will throw bad money into that pit, letting these two duke it out there). Because its a do-or-die race, neither campaign bothers to try to win the remaining 4 other races, and lose their home, so they will pour all their efforts of the previous week into only Florida. Meanwhile Kasich will own his home state of Ohio. That means that the remaining 193 delegates from Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina will go to OTHER rivals, and after March 15, we will most definitely NOT have a clear front-runner again.
ASSUMPTIONS INTO MY MODEL
So let me explain the specific assumptions I have made. First off, I have eliminated the pretender campaigns of Jindal, Pataki, Santorum, Lindsay Graham and Jim Gilmore. So we have 10 viable candidacies to consider: Trump, Carson, Bush, Rubio, Cruz, Fiorina, Kasich, Christie, Paul and Huckabee. Some are nearly on life-support (Paul, Huckabee) based in current polling and modest fund-raising but don't be misled by early polls. Huckabee is a wily veteran who won Iowa in 2008. Paul is the son of Ron Paul whose political machine became the master of the caucus states and took the third most delegates in 2012 against Romney. Anyway, I eliminated the five pretender candidates.
Then Dr Carson. I think his candidacy is utterly untenable. He is out of his depth and so far, he's gotten a 'free pass' from much of the media when he was in the shadow of Trump. Now that Carson is running neck-to-neck with Trump and likely will pass him in some polling soon (he already has in some isolated statewide polls), the focus then shifts by everyone on Carson as a front-runner. And his moronic statements and out-beyond-Sarah-Palin extreme views will turn off most voters. He has a hugely loyal base of Tea Party supporters and Carson took the largest intake of campaign donations on the Republican side (50% more than Jeb) but once the real scrutiny starts, we find Carson is not durable as a politican.
But worse, Carson hates this process and won't even try to play it. He hates talking to the press, he hates answering for what he's said in the past, he truly hates the campaigning side of this race. He's already virtually suspended his campaign now in October 2015 - while he is SURGING in the polls - to concentrate on a book tour instead. He will be the traditional 'flavor of the month' candidate that the races often see, like last time with Michelle Bachmann, Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, all who were polling leaders for some weeks or so, before the first votes were cast but who never won even one state. Giuliani never entered the race formally and Bachmann dropped out before the voting started. I see Carson as exactly of this mold. He is a candidate of utterly unsustainable hopes that in reality is hopelessly weak and would go down to total ruin if the Republicans ever nominated him against Hillary Clinton. So for my model, I have eliminated Carson.
Note first, that if you want Carson to remain in the race, it will not dramatically alter the dynamics of the other viable candidates, but it would siphon off more votes from the front-runners making it EVER MORE likely that the race goes to June or even beyond. Carson cannot win the nomination, that is clear. If he decides to stay through early voting and take the drubbing in those states, but collect some delegates, yes, he'll just be more of the spoiler to this nasty campaign already. And I am not alone in this view, obviously, many pundits think Carson won't stay in it. He wants to sell more books and grow his book royalty income and raise his speaking fees on the conservative speaker circuit. He may be angling also for some Cabinet post, that is more in his style than campaigning which he clearly hates.
How did I allocate Carson's support? I used the Fox poll that just came out that allocated Trump and/or Carson and/or Jeb votes if that candidate quit and who would gain. I however, ignored the voters that would go from Carson to Trump because Trump has his own adjustment in my model. But I am assuming Carson will be out likely before Iowa, certainly by end of February. And his supporters go by the proportion as measured in the Fox poll.
On state-wide polling, where recent polling existed for the early states, I used the RCP average or the latest poll if only one existed, at least published in September or later. Many states have enough in-state polling data to get us this info, but not all. The first four states all do. But note, these polls have a large part of undecided voters. I allocated the undecided voters to all viable candidates that are not Carson or Trump, and directly proportionately to what the latest polling was in that state. I believe that when the undecided voters get serious and make up their minds, they are more likely to 'return to the fold' of traditional Republican voting, ie select an 'establishment candidate' than go with the rebellion. There will be, by then, many debates, and many newspaper endorsements, and many popular local politicians endorsing candidates, and the establishment Republican party will support their own, not the rebellion, for the most part. Hence I am assuming the undecideds will predominantly go to familiar traditional Republican politicians, Governors and Senators, rather than the untested unknowns. The undecided vote is typically around 15% of any given state polling, to give you an understanding how big this adjustment is. Its about one in six votes that gets allocated (proportionately).
On Donald Trump, he is such a big factor to the race in 2016, and he's clearly proven he is not a one-month-wonder, he is quite possibly going to remain in the race for a long while into 2016. So I made two parallel paths for my model. One is that Trump stays in it, the other is that Trump quits. And I modelled each state election through to 15 March by the two alternate scenarios. What if Trump stays in it, and what if Trump pulls out of it. Then what of his support? Trump currently polls nationally at about 24%, down from his peak of about 30% (RCP averages obviously, not individual polls). Trump was hit for the first time seriously in the second Republican debate, and those who hit him hard, Fiorina, Rubio, saw their polling improve, and Jeb after doing a better job at Trump saw his declines stop, so we can expect the third Republican debate to see increased attacks against the Donald. He can see that coming, thats why he demanded to change the debate rules, to limit the time, and to insist on opening and closing statements, so that he, Trump, doesn't have to endure the relentless attacks by all sides.
Trump also has thrived on free media coverage. That is gradually subsiding. It used to be in July and August, that almost all newsmedia featured at least one Trump story almost every day, and often several Trump-related stories at the same time. He also was seen on all TV channels. That is now starting to return to normal. Every event for him is not covered by 24 hour news, he now is seen more like a 'normal' candidate and the normal 'rules' of media coverage will start to apply to him too. He does have to propose genuine proposals, he can't run fake events on false promises like his big foreign policy speech on that battleship, which turned out to be a standard stump speech, and TV channels soon quit the speech in the middle of his talking when it became clear, he is not giving anything new. It took far longer for Trump the media celebrity to revert to 'normal' rules of political news coverage but that is now starting to happen. It may well be, that Trump can forever gain more coverage than the rivals, but the 'All Trump Channel' type of coverage we saw in the summer has now passed.
Trump has also continued to alienate some segments, and as he does, they do not come back. This is as if he is deliberately LOWERING his ceiling, not raising it. He claims that he'll win the Hispanic vote but the recent national Marist poll says only 13% of Hispanics like Trump. 70% have an unfavorable view of him. Same is happening or has happened with women (Megyn Kelly incident), veterans (John McCain incident) and now many neocon foreign policy supporters (W Bush and September 11 terrorist attack, he did not keep the USA safe).. Note for example, that Trump faked a veteran support rally, that battleship event was a fake veterans' group that actually has no registered supporters and is more of a fringe lobby group than any veterans' association. But it 'endorsed' Trump and he pretends veterans like him and support him, just like Trump pretends the Hispanics will vote for him in huge numbers (they obvioulsy won't; Trump was even afraid to go speak to their groups like the business-friendly Hispanic Chamber of Commerce).
I am not saying Trump will fold and his support will collapse. He's got a very strong base in the xenophobic racist paranoia wing of the Tea Party. Trump is good for 10% to 15% that will not desert him no matter what. But the soft support at the top, what was above 20% and got him to 30%, that is now eroding. It will erode ever more as he keeps insulting various voting groups and as the others keep attacking Trump. His stunt with the TV debates is one that no doubt wins him short-term applause with Tea Party loyalists - he stood up to the maintstream media - but it also exposes exactly the modus operandi for Trump: he is a bully and his style of managing (and god forbid, governing) is to bully first, and only bully, and do nothing but to bully. The media took notice and he will be facing ever more hostile media down the line and various opponents will point to this as how Trump 'negotiates' and that Mexico and China and Russia and Iran and ISIS will not react kindly to bullying. Neither would Congress or the Senate. A Trump Presidency would be an instant global catastrophy and utter gridlock in every direction, until he was impeached. But Trump will never win the election of 2016, but he MIGHT win the nomination. That is what my model tells us...
Anyway, I made two versions. One is that Trump stays in it, the other that Trump pulls out of the race. Note, Trump hates being a loser, and if the poling for Iowa and New Hampshire show him in third place for example, then his glorious promise of winning and being the greatest and everybody loves him and the future will have so many victories that the Americans will become bored with winning... that all will vanish and instead, Trump will go down in history not as a great successful businessman, Billionaire of beautiful buildings, rather as a baffoon idiot loser who ran on stupid policies and on a platform of insulting everybody. If he goes into this race and doesn't win, that will be his lasting memory. He would be labeled a loser, and incidentially hated by the party too, for wrecking so much of their chances in 2016. So if it seems obvious to Trump near the first votes, by late polling, that he is headed to losses, he may well suddenly - and quite without any warning, pull out of the race. This may happen very late before Iowa votes. Then whatever vote he actually gets, he can blame, it was not because he had bad support, it was because he quit. And he quit because (Trump-style nonsense follows)
In the Trump quits version, I allocated all of his support again like with Dr Carson, to the other candidates but not including Carson, based on the Fox poll of where that support would go. That is straight-forward. On the Trump stays in it version, I made a bold assumption and an arbitrary level. I decided that Trump will lose one third of his current support, across the line. I think we can see the downward trajectory in recent polling. It should continue as Trump's glittering promise is now showing less so, and the attacks upon him keep getting sharper. But its not going to eliminate the base of his support. So from 24% today nationally,my model has his national support down to 16% by February. That will help you in understanding the model and reality, when we compare the facts as the reality emerges in coming months. Then each state had of course the same adjustment, in every state Trump polling support was cut by 1/3. That was allocated to his rivals by the same Fox polling model.
There is a well-established phenomenon of 'momentum' that a given candidate gains support in the next election, if they win the previous one. This does not always happen (a debate may change the dynamics for example) and it might not be enough to bring a victory in the next election, but there tends to be a gain to the last winner. So in my model, I assigned an arbitrary standard 10 points bonus to the next election for whoever won the previous election. So for example whichever candidate is winning Iowa, the first contest, that 'winner' will then get 10 points more above his polling support for the next vote, which is New Hampshire, and so forth. The remaining votes for any state will then be allocated based on polling for that state. To adjust for the added 10 point bonus, I then adjusted downward so all others lost support proportoinately (ie 1/10th of their support in that state).
For early home states in proportional states - Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky, I gave the home candidate 50% of the vote (Cruz, Huckabee, Paul) and allocated the remainder by current polling. Where a state did not have its own recent polling, I used the national RCP average. For states with caucus votes in the early battles in March, I gave the Rand Paul campaign a boost of half of the unallocated votes, to simulate the effect of how the Paul family knows to maximize caucus state performance in delegate count. (this effect is quite muted, only giving Paul typically about 8 percent above his polling, the reality may be significantly mroe, if 2012 can be replicated by the Paul supporters. But also, its possible that the other campaigns learned from Ron Paul last time and this beneifit is mostly now neutralized). For Kentucky I included both events for Paul so he won more than half of Kentucky's votes. Then for the March 1 races and beyond, the race becomes so expensive that money will matter disproportionately. The candidates cannot go shake every hand in every little town meeting, they have to use mass media to get their messages across. That favors Jeb Bush with the biggest fund-raising machine (apart from Carson) on the Republican side. So I gave Jeb half of the unallocated delegates in all states from March 1 on, that were not caucus states, or did not have a local candidate. It on average gave Jeb 8 more points in those states.
We can quarrel endlessly on the exact proportion of how big will Trump's support be, will ie amount to 16% nationally in February and March, or will it be more or less. Will Jeb's fund-raising advantage give him 8 points or less in states that are not caucuses, and where there is no local resident candidate running. And whether Rand Paul's caucus effect is bigger or smaller. But these are all factors that do matter, and very importantly, if a candidate has the funds to continue to his/her home state race, the home field advantage will be important, far more so this year than normally. And the foundation of my model is the actual delegate count as reported on Wikipedia for the Republican race in 2016, by state. And the support of each candidate is not my personal opinion, it is strictly the measured polling in each state where such exists in a current poll from September or later, and if RCP publishes an average of recent polls for that state, I used that average.
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
This is an early PRELIMINARY model, with very definite uncertaintly and some likely bias that is visible today. First off, all polling data is current as of today, 18 October, 2015. That has a known error built in. Polls over-emphasize candidates who are currently politically hot. So after the last Republican debate, Fiorina and Rubio have been on the rise. They may well be artificially high at the moment, because that rise brings them more attention, and then they have to face the music both in the media coverage and in subsequent debates, as more of front-runners drawing more fire from rivals. Its VERY likely that Rubio and Fiorina support will adjust back toward the middle, from their artificially high support levels now (compared to the viable field, ignoring the pretenders and ignoring Carson specifically). That means, almost certainly, that the non-Rubio and non-Fiorina 'normal' candidates like Bush, Cruz, Christie, Kasich and Huckabee, will gain (but in proportion ie slightly) when those two 'return back' towards the middle of the field.
Some of the national polling has seen Fiorina support fall quite dramatically now in the aftermath of her delusions regarding what she claims she heard and saw in Planned Parenthood videos. That severe political gaffe may end up dooming her run, if she doesn't wake up and notice, being a politician is different from being a CEO and you have to come clean when you clearly are caught in a lie. Anyway, my point is, I cannot inject my own 'opinion' of how the election might evolve from today. The model is more robust if we calculate it as it is, and acknowledge where it has shortcomings. The fact that all polls for all primary and caucus votes from February and March, are based on the current standing in October, is certainly a shortcoming. It means that this model likely indicates a stronger showing by Rubio and Fiorina than reality will actually show. But, for the delegate math impacts, if there is less of a front-runner than Rubio (leading if Trump is out, or in second place if Trump remains in), then the Republican race will be MORE likely to go past June than if Rubio is strong..
UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
But there are those that may happen, and can dramatically alter the race. A candidate can have a scandal (the many loves of the Pizzaman) or have a brainfart (My three plans are... oops). Or go totally off the rails (I suspend my campaign because the economy is cratering), Or the candidate can expose himself/herself to be a lunatic (I read all the newspapers). Or the candidate can reveal he or she actually does not live in reality (moonbase!). This can happen on either side, and it can alter the race very dramatically. Gary Hart was seen as the front-runner when he was caught in his affair. John Edwards equally on the Democratic side, wasn't quite the front-runner but a very strong candidate when he suddenly announced he's quitting, also due to an infidelity scandal. The Republicans are by no means immune to this, Herman Cain ended his campaign last time due to the same reason.
The point is, that a scandal might appear with any candidate, strong or weak. A debate goof may happen to any candidate but less likely to happen with experienced candidates who have run through many political races. But campaigns can also collapse from other failures. And most of all, its the support of fund-raising. The more a candidate has a broad base of citizen-contributions (like Bernie Sanders, Dr Carson and Hillary) rather than just limited to some millionaires (Jeb Bush or say Scott Walker and RIck Perry earlier in this cycle) the more that candidate can weather such storms. The millionaire donor support can be very fickle and the money spigot can be turned off quite suddenly (witness Walker & Perry) which means the candidate has to drop out, essentially overnight.
My model counts 9 viable candidates if Trump is in it, and 8 if Trump quits the race. But its VERY likely, that some scandals or gaffes will force a few of the 8 to quit as their funding suddenly dries up. Its far more likely that the race is with 6 or 7 candidates in March than 8 or 9. But its highly unlikely that the race is shrunk to 3 or 4 candidates. Note, if say John Kasich drops out before 15 March, then the 66 delegates of Ohio will be up for grabs. That being a winner-take-all state, it would be a sudden 'bonus' prize for all still contesting. But mostly only those who are very well funded at the time, would be able to go contest for it. If Christie for example was still running on a modest budget, and most of his funds would be already committed to TV ad buys and travel costs, he could not suddenly capitalize on Ohio becoming 'open' where Christie usually should play pretty well (as a moderate Governor) if Kasich were no longer in it.
So what I want to say, is that my model is not a forecast. It has known shortcomings and there are likely going to be some individual election events that alter some of the opportunities in this model, quite dramatically. But that being said, this is FAR more solid than any analysis of only polling support or only debate performance or only fund-raising. Even a combined 'comprehensive' model that takes polling, debates and fund-raising, will not handle the DIFFERENCES between the states, that a meticulous delegate-count does. Remember, the proportion of delegates is not aligned with the proportion of population, or of proportion of voters. Its not either in proportion of the 'electoral college' that is the count of votes deciding the President, which means that the candidate can win the popular vote but lose the Presidency as happened with W Bush vs Al Gore, and historically happened several times. But yes, even if you have a (current) model of the Electoral College votes by states, that does not correspond exactly with the Republican delegate count by proportions, per state (and the Democratic party count for their delegates is again, different).
So this is not a forecast for who wins in 2016. This is a model to examine how likely is a prolonged fight to the nomination and help identify and measure some factors that will impact that possibiliy. What I do arrive at, is that no viable scenario gives the nomination to any candidate before June 2016. And again some weaseling from a consultant. It is possible that one candidate catches fire. Its possible one candidate rises and has a fantastic run with a brilliantly-run campaign. Consider how Obama the candidate fit so well with the campaign of 2008 with its 'Yes-we-can' chants mesmerizing the youth and bringing out a wave election for Obama, against the 'inevitable' candidacy of Hlilary Clinton and derailing her coronation. A strong debater can stay in the race with continued good debate performance (Huckabee in 2008) or give a surprise win for a backfield candidate (Newt Gingrich in South Carolina 2012). A surprise victory like that could alter the whole trajectory of a candidate's run (as long as that candidate doesn't suddenly go all Moonbase! upon us. What the hell is Jeb doing picking on that Moonbase idea now? Does he really not want to win anything? What is Jeb going to do next, he's trying to deny his brother was in charge when September 11 happened, will he visit all blunders in the GOP. Will he try to defend Rick Perry math skills counting to three, or Dick Cheney's hunting skill shooting friends in the face? Jeb has truly the Bush family skill of sticking his foot in his mouth).
THE TWO SCENARIOS FOR EARLY 2016
So with that, lets do the election model scenario. Or actually two scenarios, one with Trump in it, the other with Trump out. In February there are four nominating elections for Republicans, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. In the Trump scenario, my model gives all four state election victories to Trump but with modest total voter count (he'd win Iowa with only 19% of the votes). After the month, Trump would hold 42 delegates out of 133 awarded. Rubio and Fiorina nearly tied at second and third (20 and 19 delegates) and Cruz and Bush would both have 15 delegates. Notice how meaningless that modest lead of 23 delegates would be for Trump. On 1 March, a total of 624 delegates will be awarded. What the month of February would give the front-runner is only bragging rights, and no real relevant competitive advantage, even though MORE delegates are awarded in the first four states this time than last time.
If we take the scenario where Trump is out, then Rubio emerges as the winner. And again, as the polling is probably over-stating Rubio (And Fiorina) at this specific point in time and as I award the 'momentum' advantage 10 points bonus to the winner of the previous election, Rubio runs the table of the four first states. His winning vote in Iowa is 21%. After the four states he would hold 40 delegates out of 133 awarded, with Cruz at 23 delegates, Fiorina at 19, Paul at 17, Bush at 16. The race would be very close to even, Rubio's lead of 17 delegates would be only psychological. Rubio's lead would amount to 3% of the votes cast on 1 March and ANY slightest gaffe at the end of February could wipe 3 points out and give to any rival.
March 1 gives us the SEC primary and 12 states with 624 delegates awarded just on that day (vs 133 awarded in the whole month of February). March 1 has Texas, and I award 78 delegates to Ted Cruz (half of Texas). Arkansas votes on that day and I give Huckabee half of that state (he likely takes more than that) ie 20 delegates. Then there are some caucus states where Rand Paul will outperform. For the rest, on one day, huge delegate haul at stake, here is where Jeb Bush's fund-raising advantage (and his massive Super PAC support where more than 100 million dollars were collected so far, by far the biggest Super PAC fund)
Note my model will keep giving the victories to the (nominal) front-runner because of the staleness of the numbers. The reality is dynamic and the national polling of late February will likely be dramatically different from today. But note, this still is a model to test can one candidate WIN the nomination before June, So if we test the extremely 'lucky' run by one candidate, the reality will likely be even less able to convert to an earlier nomination. But yes, lets do the math.
If Trump is in it, after March 1, Trump will have 28% of all delegates awarded ie 212. Behind him would be Cruz at 114, Rubio at 104, Bush at 98 and Fiorina at 83 delegates. If Trump is not in the race, then Rubio has 30% of the delegates on the morning of March 2, with 227. His closest rivals would be Cruz with 144, Bush with 106, Paul with 91 and Fiorina with 83 delegates. The magic number to clinch the nomination is 1,236. Although delegates in the first 30 days of the race, amounting to 61% of the magic number, will have been awarded, the best leader of either scenario, Rubio, will have only secured 18% of those. This race will be the least 'dominating' that we've seen on either side, as far as can be remembered.
Seven more states (six states and one region, Puerto Rico) will award delegates in the next dozen days that are still awarded proportionately. This includes Rand Paul's home state of Kentucky. So by 13 March, another 271 delegates are awarded and the race is nearly at half point (1,028 total delegates). So I ran my simuilation past those states with the same assumptions, and on the eve of 15 March, we have the race like this: if Trump is in it, he's at 267 delegates and 26% of the total awarded. Behind him come Rubio at 154 delegates, Cruz 144, Bush 134, Fiorina 113 and Paul at 93 delegates. If Trump is not in the race then Rubio leads with 288 delegates (28% of all won so far) with Cruz at 195, Bush at 154, Paul at 144 and Fiorina at 113 delegates.
15 March changes the race and from then on, the states award delegates for winner-take-all. Florida will be, likely, as I predicted, an elimination-round, where one of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio will lose their home state and go home. It is one of the largest states, it is the largest 'swing state' that the Republicans have to win in 2016 if either Bush or Rubio is on the ticket to have a chance against Hillary (other scenarios are possible if they can win Virginia and Ohio, but if Bush/Rubio lose to Hillary in their home state of Florida, the election of 2016 will be over). So Jeb and Marco will pour all their money and effort not to be eliminated. And yes, Rubio has been very impressive in debates while Jeb is, as Trump likes to say, 'low energy' but the fund-raising advantage is crushing for Bush. Rubio is doing no favors to his favorability at home by ignoring Senate votes - something Trump likes to remind voters. I do think by the time March comes along, Jeb's organization will eke out a win in Florida for him, but that race will be heavily contested and close, and expensive. All others will stay away as throwing precious election campagn funds to the winner-take-all state of Florida with two of its own sons running, would be futile. The other campaigns will concede Florida. Its 99 delegates go either to Bush or to Rubio.
Then Ohio, another winner-take-state, another swing state, and one with 66 delegates. Its incumbent Governor is the most popular sitting candidate running on either side, and Kasich will easily walk away with Ohio. That means, that the other hungry candidates have to ignore Florida and Ohio, but will then face off in Illinois, MIssouri and North Carolina. Missouri is a caucus state, so Rand Paul will put all his effort that week to win Missouri Ted Cruz will play far better in North Carolina than in Illinois, he's likely to put his heavy money effort into NC, but he might also try to steal Missouri from Paul. Fiorina and Christie would fight for Illinois. Huckackee could be a spoiler in either Missouri or North Carolina whichever he feels he'll have a stronger chance. But what this means, is that Cruz might win two states of the three. Its more likely that all three will go to different winners. And thus, 15 March's five states will give delegates to four or even five different winners. As to Trump, if he's in it, I think his best chance is Illinois, where his media visibilty in expensive Chicago media market would be very valuable. But yes, five winner-take-all states and at least four different winners, possibly five. The only thing we'll know after Super Tuesday is, has Bush been kicked out of the race. Even Rubio has a chance to SURVIVE a loss in Florida (but then his race would revert to Vice President whether he admitted it or not).
RACE AFTER MID-MARCH
If Trump is in the race all the way to 15 March, my scenario has the following ranges of delegates (depending on who wins Florida, and who takes Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina).
Trump has a minimum of 269 delegates and a maximum of 338 delegates
Cruz has a minimum of 146 and a maximum of 270 delegates
Rubio if he wins Florida he has 249 delegates, else he is out with 150 delegates
Bush if he wins Florida has 236 delegates, else he is out with 137 delegates
Fiorina has a minimum of 117 and a maximum of 186 delegates
Paul has a minimum of 92 and a maximum of 144 delegates
Huckabee has a minimum of 58 and a maximum of 130 delegates
Christie has a minimum of 35 and a maximum of 104 delegates
Kasich will have 90 delegates
Its perfectly plausible on the morning of March 16, that Cruz leads the delegate race with 270, Trump has 269, Rubio has 249 and Fiorina has 186 delegates. Paul, Huckabee, Christie and Kasich would be under 100 delegates each. And the race would be pretty close to a four-way tie. Equally possible its that Trump leads with 338 delegates, Bush is second with 236, Cruz is third with 146, Paul with 144, and the rest are in under-100 delegate level. Even though Trump would have a clear lead, he would only have 27% of the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.
If Trump is out of the race, then the delegate count after Super Tuesday votes of 15 March, 2015, would look like this:
If Rubio won Florida, he leads with 391 delegates. But even if he loses, as he'd have the most delegates at 292, Marco could still continue to run.
If Bush wins Florida instead, he'd have 250 delegates vs Rubio's 292). If Bush loses Florida, he goes home with 150 delegates.
Paul would have a minimum of 142 and a maximum of 194 delegates
Fiorina would have a minimum of 117 and a maximum of 186 delegates.
Huckabee would have a minimum of 60 and a maximum of 132 delegates
Christie would have a minimum of 60 and a maximum of 129 delegates
Kasich would have 85 delegates.
So first off, a totally valid scenario of very plausible 2016 early primaries and caucuses, says that each of these candidates can be still viable as of 15 March. Each sees a valid path to somewhere in the 100 to 200 delegates, where the leader never breaks 400 delegates. Sure, Huckabee, Christie and Kasich have a hard climb, but they are not out of it. One good debate performance could dramatically alter their path, or one of the other front-runners stumbling along the way (Fiorina?). This messy prolonged fight is exactly the phenomenon I predicted in my February 2015 article warning about the 'Revenge of the Math'. The delegate math this cycle is brutal, with these candidates, especially because so many candidates come from major states so the 'available' contested states with their delegates is dramatically reduced.
NOT ENOUGH DELEGATES UNALLOCATED
Then comes the pain. More than half of the delegates have been awarded, but the remainder does not have enough to secure a win, until June. And in that case the delegate would have to run the table, an unbeaten win-streak to get to the nomination.
Lets say Trump was in it and woke up on 16 March with the lead and 338 delegates. He would have to win every remaining state until 14 June. Even that is not enough, but there are still 9 states and regions that have not selected their election date. Trump would need one of those, say North Dakota, then he has secured his nomination on... 14 June.
What about Rubio? Rubio's best scenario is that Trump doesn't run and Rubio wins Florida. He's have 391 delegates. Now, heading to the rest of the races, if he's able to run the table through all announced elections, he would not clinch the nomination until the second-to-last voting day, 7 June.
Ted Cruz could not clinch the nomination until winning all the announced election dates, running the table, and also winning two of the unallocated states, Colorado and North Dakota. Cruz's earliest date of clinching is 14 June the last voting day.
Rand Paul's best case if of course if Trump is out of it. If Paul is lucky on 15 March winning the caucus election in Missouri, he'd have 194 delegates. Now, how could Paul clinch the nomination before the Convention. From that date forward, Rand Paul would have to win every single state that votes, his only margin is that he would not have to win the four regions like Samoa and Guam.
Carly Fiorina could clinch, mathematically, if she takes Illinois on 15 March, and then runs the table winning every remaining state, and takes one of the four regions.
If Huckabee, Christie and Kasich have not outperformed this model by 15 March, they cannot win the nomination even if they won every remaining state and region. But anyone with the highest delegate count at the end would be in a commanding position to become the nominee. Mathematically its still quite plausible that anyone finishing in the top 3 could become the Republican party nominee for President, and anyone in the Top 5 could be the VP choice (if the party tries to find a coalition).
This model suggests that Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Paul and Fiorina all have a chance to win the race, and then dark horses Christie, Kasich and Huckabee, would need plenty of luck to win the nomination outright, but if it goes to a brokered convention, then any delegates would be valuable in that bargaining.
This model suggests that the Republican race will run to June. This model also suggests that nobody can break free. It means that Trump would have a remarkably strong chance if he stays in it. All signs recently suggest Trump is adjusting from a pure ego-driven celebrity campaign to a serious race. And as the model shows, if Trump stays in it, he's likely to be ahead all the way through 15 March (although Ted Cruz may have overtaken him) and that the race will be wide open for the second half of the race, from mid March to mid-June. Remember, I am not assuming Trump holds 24% national polling support. I have downgraded Trump support to 16% and have given Trump none of Carson's supporters. Even at that level, where his rivals get 84% fo the support, Trump could be ahead at the half-point of the race in Mid March 2016, and if he stays in it, he could have the most delegates in the final count. That makes you pause, doesn't it. Trump winning the most delegates even as his support stays never climbs to the 30% range nationally.. it is plausible. And if his run has a clear path to 'victory' then why would Trump quit? He may be here to entertain us and pester the Republicans for many more months to come. Oh, can you imagine the 'negotiations' if Trump wins the most delegates but only has say 18% of the delegates in the summer of 2016, and then he tries to bully himself to become the nominee? That could be fun to follow on Twitter..
MOST LIKELY IS UNDECIDED AT END
The most likely scenario, as the race plays out, means that the contest is undecided after the primary season ends at mid June. Consider the remaining states. In either scenario, Ted Cruz is one of the front-runners. He might even have the (slimmest) lead ahead of Trump after 15 March. Now, consider Western states that border on Texas like New Mexico and other states nearby Arizona and Utah. If Cruz is one of the front-runners and no other Westerner is running, and as Cruz will have plenty of money, he should win those three states. Give 122 delegates of the remaining ones to Cruz. Then take Christie. He will not be a front-runner but he's in the race. Now go to New York. Who is the best-known politician of this field, among the moderate Republican voters, just from across the river, often more in New York press, than New York's own Governor. And known for working well across the river, such as with the hurricane aftermath. Late in the game, when a huge state such as New York will be a costly media market, it is Chris Christie's to lose. Lets give him those 95 delegates. And his home state of New Jersey with its 51 delegates. Yes, the electorate now says, they want Christie to quit running. Its a blue state, those are mostly Democrats saying that. After ten debates, Christie will be very popular back among Republicans in his home state, as its by then more than a year from Bridgegate. So in total, lets say Christie gets 146 delegates.
Then lets take California. If Carly Fiorina will do as well as I put into my model (assuming she can move past the Planned Parenthood video nonsense) and if she's a 'mid field' rival with a nice haul of about 100 delegates, when California comes along, she will be formidable back home. The others need to build a very expensive California organization, which Fiorina has from her failed Senate run. Its an expensive media market, she has name recognition. She's a moderate, not extremist, so Cruz won't play well. And its the home of Silicon Valley so she'll get a lot of 'home field' support there as well. Its by no means a given but if she is doing well by Super Tuesday, about mid-field, then she'll be one of the front-runners, if not the front-runner to win the biggest delegate haul, California. Thats 172 delegates. And finally Rand Paul. I am hesitant to give him any more caucus states, except Montana. Montana votes on 7 June, which also has the costly California primary, New Jersey, New Mexico and Montana. If Christie is focusing on winning his home, and Cruz fighitng for NM, and Bush (and possibly Trump) trying for costly California, it means Huckabee and Kasich would rather go for the small primary state of South Dakota, rather than the small caucus state of Montana. Rand Paul's best bet of the remaining states, that he could almost consider a home-field advantage is Montana's caucuses. So lets allocate its 27 delegates to Rand Paul.
Now, on the more simple model I have (without Trump) let me use the following assumptions about 15 March. Lets say Jeb Bush wins Florida and Rubio suspends his campaign. So Bush continues with 250 delegates past mid-March. So Kasich wins his home state of course of Ohio. Then lets give Missouri to Rand Paul, give North Carolina to Huckabee and Illinois to Christie. Now, add the above delegates to Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul. That allocates 1,883 delegates. The remaining 637 delegates, lets just give them evenly, 91 per candidate. Now, the final tally after the race is over, at the end of June, heading to a brokered convention would be:
Most delegates Cruz 407 which is 16%
Second most delegates Fiorina 380 which is 15%
Third most delagates Christie 366 which is 15%
Fourth most delegates Bush 341 which is 14%
Fifth most delegates Paul 285 which is 12%
Sixth most delegates Huckabee 223 which is 9%
Seventh most delegates Kasich 176 which is 7%
and suspended campaign Rubio holds 292 delegates (12%)
If this is the result, the most likely final pairing of President is Ted Cruz with Carly Fiorina as his VP choice. A second most likely pairing is Cruz with Chris Christie as VP. Third most likely outcome is Fiorina as Presidential nominee with Christie as VP (because Cruz will not accept VP as he's won more delegates than Fiorina). And you can do the progression down the line. (Remember this is the more simple model, where Trump has dropped out, if Trump is in it, he's most likely the 'winner' with most delegates but not much more than what Cruz has here)
NOTE that this scenario, very plausible, consistently home field or nearby candidates winning what 'they should' - would mean that the top 2 candidates cannot get a majority in any pairing. Top THREE candidates cannot get majority of delegates. So a President + Vice President + Secretary of State package cannot lock a majority, and thus bottom-end players, Huckabee and Kasich could play 'king-maker'. And obviously Rubio's support would be crucial to securing any nomination. In an age of 24 hour news, social media and Twitter... this would be an epic game, who gets to be the Republican nominee for President. Also, note, any such bargaining is likely to severely, truly, severely, upset those who 'lose out'. No compromise of giving 'the opponents' the VP slot is possible if more than half are then upset.
Again, it is just a scenario, but those candidates seem to be viable all the way to March 15, and we already know, March 15 will not decide who wins, it will be split between 4 or even 5 separate winners out of 5 states. So the race will continue easily past March, and now, that end-game I plotted, is very plausble, almost likely that the race will go to June. And a brokered convention is now more likely than at any point in many decades.
PAGING A REAGAN OR OBAMA
So what the Republican party now needs is a Reagan to emerge to unify the party before this disaster plays out next Spring. Well, its all bad news. We've now seen the field. Trump may become the winner, but he has such huge negatives, and he makes a habit of upsetting anyone he can find, he will never be the unifier candidate, and like Romney said, he won't vote for Trump. Many Republlicans will hate Trump on their ticket and certainly this race will not be taken by 'unifiier Trump' haha. Divider Trump rather.
So what about Dr Ben Carson. He is unelectable. He has very high favorability among base conservatives yes, but he is not ready for any kind of prime time. He is even more bizarre as a candidate than Trump or indeed Sarah Palin. The moderate wing would revolt long before Carson got to 30%. He has hit his ceiling. Carson will continue the run on this subsidised ego-trip, and convert as much of it to his book-business and speaking business as he can, before the votes are counted. A Tea Party favorite yes, but can he unite this party, absolutely not.
Jeb Bush? The Jeb Bush we learned about before the campaigns started, that imaginary Jeb Bush was a powerful politician who could have emerged as the power that takes the party. Not Jeb as we've seen him. Now this ridiculous mess about "my brother kept us safe' is a lose-lose issue for Jeb. It is a suicidal general election line that will haunt him if he makes it through. It reminds all those who hated the W Bush presidency - among Republicans - and it reminds everybody that he's just another Bush who cannot detect reality. Jeb may indeed limp to the finish line and might grab the nomination (but I am increasingly now thinking Jeb might be the VP pick, haha, not unlike his dad was for Reagan). You wanted a Reagan? Its certainly not in Jeb, and the worst nightmare to Bush supporters is Trump, who makes a hobby out of trashing Jeb at every moment he gets.
Cruz? Ted Cruz should be the one. a pure consevative but he's hated by the mainstream party and he doesn't play well in debates or on TV. The extreme love him but the moderates do not. Plus, his persona is antithetical to uniting and compromising, so the uniter-in-chief is not hiding inside Ted Cruz.
Marco Rubio could be it. He is the best orator among the field. That smells a lot like Obama from 2008 and many Republicans see that parallel already now, before Trump has drummed that idea into their brains if Rubio were to ascend to the top of the polls. I think Rubio is having his moment, but his real ability is not yet ripe, he is the candidate for the future, only laying his groundwork now. Possible VP but not to the top of the ticket. Plus his vulnerability in Florida vs Jeb is a concern, as is his meager fund-raising.
Who else? Kasich is too wooden. Christie too angry. Rand Paul too aloof. Fiorina is another delusional facts denier, and she was never the 'uniter' as CEO, it would be totally against her persona to seek compromise with rivals. Who then? Huckabee? I don't see a Ronald Reagan or a Barack Obama in this field. Give them four years to mature, if Ted Cruz learns to speak like a normal human being, or if babyface Marco Rubio goes and has an anti-face-lift and makes his face look older and colors his hair with some gray, then by 2020 either of those could be the promise of the next Reagan and unite the party (around conservative ideals). Not this year. But yeah, Rubio would be nearest to that, he could be running a win streak as my model suggested, and then find the party closing ranks behind him. But if Rubio really got on that win streak, it would not be until June that even in that case Rubio would lock it. It would mean Rubio would need to steal New Jersey and New York from Chris Christie, and steal California from Fiorino, and steal the Western states from Ted Cruz. But it could happen.
Note that all campaigns start softly, and then grow ever more bitter and vicious along the way, with ever more negative campaigning, if the race remains tight. Even the friendly Obama-Hillary race of 2008 became heated towards the end. But look at how heated the Romney fight got in 2012. Now the 2016 race started with Trump playing at the hostility level where Romney left off, in 2012. That is the starting point. And all candidates are racing each other to get further and further past the cliff-edge to lunatic territory pandering to the Tea Party. It will only get nuttier and rougher, the longer that race goes on, and the longer Trump remains in it. And now that the delegate math is done, we can see the Revenge of the Math. Trump is not quitting any day soon; and even if he did, the remaining 8 candidates cannot find a winner before June. It will be epic. Buckle your seatbelts, this race is getting wilder still.
In related blogs, coming soon, I am working to finish my 2016 election form book (both sides) now that we have seen both sides debate and the fund-raising has been reported. I will post that analysis when its ready. The analysis of the delegate math plays a part for that, which is why I am posting this blog first. This is part of the input to the form book.
If you want to revisit my preview of the Republican nomination fight for this cycle, that predicted this type of possibility already in February 2015 long before Trump had announced, and were I discussed the fundamentals that were pushing the race to this direction, read this 'Unprecedented nightmare'.
PS to those who are new to the blog. I love discussing with readers here, so do please leave comments but know this. I insist on the rule that any comments not waste the time of our readers, so some people skim through a blog and then rush to comment, or haven't finished an article, and post a comment. Note, if I would need to start my reply to you with 'if you had read the full article' - such comments do not exist on this blog. I just simply delete your whole comment, however valid it was otherwise, if it clearly illustrates that you did not read the full article. Just be warned, but yes, I'd love to hear your thoughts of this analysis and how the race is going. And my tech and mobile fans, more coming soon as we get anything happening in our industry.
Your model is great!
I will stick with my prediction, based upon current poll trends, that Donald Trump wins every state. Notably current polls predict Trump wins in Texas, in Florida and in Ohio.
A winning issue for Trump is his wall along the Mexican border and a tightening of legal and refugee immigration into the USA. The muslim migration into Europe is a dramatic example of what can go wrong - from the viewpoint of US Republican and Republican-leaning voters.
In the general election, Trump's populist views on limiting immigration, and expelling illegals, have economic implications that will drive a larger than expected fraction of working class Democrats to vote for Trump over say Hillary Clinton.
I predict that Trump will poll well in some historically Democratic states, resulting in a historic landslide for Donald Trump in the general election.
Posted by: Stephen Reed | October 19, 2015 at 04:19 PM
Hi Stephen
Fair enough. Trump has held his polling lead far past the typical 'summer fling' that usually last only about a month. He may well hold his lead to Iowa, and if he then wins Iowa, with whatever smallest actual vote count, that win would carry his momentum to NH, then a win there onto SC and Nevada. As long as the field remains wide, with something near 8 rivals still in the race by the end of February, Trump could carry that momentum into the SEC primary day of 1 March and have a super haul of delegates. Its certainly a perfectly plausible scenario. And like you note, even in almost every state with a home field advantage to their own candidate, Trump has recently polled ahead of the local rival.
If the polls hold, then yes, Trump could win so many of the states that he could take the nomination and in that case, he could take the nomination by late March. I do think, however, that all signs suggest Trump's time on the top is about to pass, some state polls have already shown Carson as the newest flavor of the month. I am expecting national polling to flip their lead, Trump was down to a 1 point lead in the latest poll out last week. Trump's direction in polling support is down, and that suggests he is unlikely to win everything coming his way, and even if during his peak support in the summer, he was ahead of others in their homes states, like beating Bush and Rubio in Florida, and beating Cruz in Texas, that was at 'peak Trump'. The first states to revert back to someone else than Trump taking the lead, will be those states with strong local candidates. So Ohio should go to Kasich, Kentucky to Paul, Texas to Cruz and Florida either to Bush or Rubio. I am confident those home states will go to their own candidates, oh and Huckabee to win Arkansas. But Trump can even afford to give all those away, he could still win it even if Fiorina takes California haha... But the more states he doesn't win early, the more it pushes his final delegate count victory to a later moment in time, into April and May. And then, the danger of course is, that one of the rivals 'catches fire' winning a state or a few, and suddenly makes a race of it against Trump. Because nearly half of the votes are awarded proportionately, there will be at least 6 and likely 8 rivals to Trump who will have enough delegates on March 15, that they can still get more than Trump by the end, if they have a lucky streak with the winner-take-all states after March 15.
But yeah, if you're a Trump fan, keep hoping those polls hold haha, your candidate does have a legitimate chance to get the nomination, fair and square. I calculate he has the second best path to the nomination only behind Ted Cruz's chances. He may well win it. But Trump would have a disasterous general election loss to Hillary, losing in a landslide. I will talk about that in more detail when we do the Form Guide blog about each candidate's observed strengths and weaknesses, that I will release when its finished, in some days. So lets talk of Trump vs Hillary after you've seen that blog, and you've seen my reasoning and 'evidence' haha.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 19, 2015 at 04:39 PM
Matthew Yglesias and I share an assessment of the facts (though we have different opinions about whether it's a good or bad thing).
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble
Obviously if Trump actually manages to get the nomination it could throw the House in play, but the GOP knows that and won't let it happen. If it goes to a brokered convention, Rubio is the nominee. The party can't stand Cruz, who would have been the conservative firebrand if not for Trump. Is 2016 4 years too early for Rubio? Probably, but being 4 years too early didn't hurt Barack Obama. At worst, Rubio keeps enough of the coalition together to cut losses in the Senate and potentially re-take it in 2018.
Posted by: Catriona | October 19, 2015 at 07:15 PM
More polling data from NBC/WSJ. Full data arrives on Tuesday.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-and-ben-carson-gain-strength-in-poll-of-republicans-1445288400
Posted by: Catriona | October 19, 2015 at 10:10 PM
Hi Catriona
Thanks for the link ot Yglesias's article, I had not read that one before. Much of what he writes, I agree with. But when you go to the 'Republican plan' part, with its four planks, that all makes perfect sense, if that comes true. The previous three planks are useless if the fourth turns out not to be true. The fourth plank was the theory that a wave election only happens against an incumbent President and a wave election thus cannot happen in favor of the Democratic candidate now. That may have historical merit as an observation (I had never thought of it in that light) but it will not matter in 2016.
We do know, from 2008, that a 'demographic' surge can happen (pro or against a given candidate). In 2008 there was a clear, strong, measured surge in the black vote in favor of Obama, compared to normal black votes in previous Presidential elections. It can clearly be seen in the exit poll data. However, that wave was at least partly countered by an anti-black vote by racists, actually admitting they voted against Obama because he was black, also in the 2008 exit polling. Unfortunately its not possible to measure the size of that racists vote surge because in 2004 the exit polling did not bother to ask if anyone was voting as a racists haha, as there were only white guys on the ticket on both sides. So its possible to get a surge (I do not mean wave) in any one demographic group. And Obama 2008 election showed that one such surge may also get a counter-surge and the size of the white racist vote in 2008 was so big, it likely cancelled out the added black voters who would not have voted otherwise. In any case, those two effects either cancelled each other out, or muted the effect to whoever gained. It turned out immaterial as the election was a wave driven by the youth vote, and targeted not against the incumbent W Bush (although there was plenty of that too, on both sides, as McCain had been against the way the Iraq war was run, and often critical of his party's President) but targeted against Sarah Palin who polarized the electorate and exit polls clearly show, Palin cost McCain more votes than she brought in from the right wing fringe.
To Yglesias's thesis. If its true that a wave cannot form for the party who has the incumbent President, then yes, his whole article would have a lot of worry for the Democrats and cheer for the Republicans. But we've already seen, very recently, that a demographic can surge when they find 'their kind' as the Presidential nominee. It happened measurably for the black vote in 2008. Now, take the same theory, a surge, but apply it to the biggest demographic conceivable, women voters. It is, I take it you will agree on this with me Catriona, INEVITABLE that there will be a women voter surge in 2016 when Hillary is on the top of the ticket. Some women who would otherwise not bother to vote, will show up to cast a vote. There will be a women voter surge. And differing from the racist vote in 2008, there will be no measurable 'anti woman' vote against her. Yes, there will be a big anti-Hillary vote, most Republicans hate the Clintons, but not any 'anti woman' vote and its quite possible that the Republicans put Fiorina on their ticket, only boosting the women's vote even more. The issue now is not, whether there will be a surge in women votes, as there definitely will be one. It is whether that will be big enough to cause a wave (or indeed a tsunami).
If there CAN be a wave, even perhaps in an exceptional case that can never again be replicated, the first woman President, then Yglesias's whole article loses its value and instead, it serves to lull the Republicans into a false sense of security. Note, as a separate minor squibble, Yglesias falls into the trap that you and I have discussed often and we, you and I, agree on this point - that midterm elections have a different voter turnout to Presidential elections. If Yglesias compares the Republican performance of 2014, a midterm, to 2012, a Presidential election, there will of course be a decline in voter turnout, which hurts Democrats the more. That map he shows, that is the change related to turnout. That AUTOMATICALLY reverses in the next election, when big turnout will be a factor helping Democrats recover many, most, or even more of the seats they lost in the midterm. And then in 2018, the Republicans can recover some of those again. And that means, even in a NORMAL election, the Republicans would be facing losses in 2016. That is before we look at how lopsided the Senate is in terms of seats being contested. And that is before we consider the Women Wave of 2016. The Republicans should have worked the past 4 years to reduce the gender gap, in anticipation that Hillary may be their rival. Instead, the Republicans have ignited women's issues in useless, factually silly and absurd theater now with Planned Parenthood (all court cases have ruled in favor of PP when those silly videos were the evidence to cut their funding) but everything up to and including Trump's attacks on Megyn Kelly's menstruation cycle. There was a massive gender gap against Romney in 2012. That GAP should have been shrunk deliberately by the Republicans. Instead, the GAP will grow bigger for 2016, because the Democrats have embraced women's issues and the Republicans have fought those. Now, combine a larger gender gap with a surge in women vote, and remember numerically there are more women alive than men, and women vote more reliably, this alone makes it a wave election. Then, add demographics on the Hispanics, and the huge voting gap on the Hispanics that Romney had in 2012, and add both the increased voting age population of Hispanics, and now their increased participation due to Julian Castro definitely being on the VP ticket on the Democrat side, possibly Cruz or Rubio (or both) on the ticket on the Republican side. Definitely, also the Hispanic vote will surge in 2016 to an unprecedented level. And they too vote far more Democratic than Republican. Yglesias's article has a lot of good points, I mostly agree with it. The Achilles's Heel of the article is the assumption that a wave cannot form in 2016 because Obama is the incumbent. That may have historical merit, it will not hold for 2016. But when that women's vote comes as a wave, it will crush all the other assumptions he made and the Republicans will suffer all up and down the ticket, in the wave. As I predicted last year in my blog article, and as EVERY single item that so far can be measured, out of that article, so far, has also come true.
So much on the article. Now, on your other points. Agree that Trump as nominee would bring House into play. Also understand that the GOP knows the disaster they would face, and are ratchetting up the pressure against him, but trying to thread that needle, of doing it that 'gently' that Trump won't sulk and take his marbles and run as an independent candidate instead. Note, Jim Webb just noticed he actually is not a Democrat either, and he floats the idea he might run as an Independent. What would that do? Jim Webb as Independent would not greatly damage Hillary core support but would draw some votes yes from her, but Jim Webb the former Republican and war hero, would draw much more from disgusted Republicans who hate their nominee (whoever it will be, there will be plenty who are disgruntled by whoever ends up standing at the end). While Webb cannot win the Presidency by any means, he could even find enough mid-ground independent support (especially as Hillary has surged to the left) that he could get into the TV debates. IF so, he could take 5% or 10% of the general vote. Note, his candidacy would further boost the general election vote (wave election, all up and down the ballot, would benefit Democrats, not Republicans) but most of all, if Jim Webb was already campaigning as an Independent, and Trump felt he was mistreated by the Republican Party, then Trump could be more willing to run as an Independent too. And then Hillary wins 50 states and takes the House and gets a filibuster-proof Senate on top of that. And the Independent run by Trump, if Ted Cruz is blocked from the Presidency but as my model says, Cruz has the easiest path to the most votes - then it could rip the Tea Party (renamed Freedom Party) from the Republicans in a total break, and Ted Cruz would run as its nominee - or the Freedom Party could build a ticket with Trump and Cruz as their ticket (Trump on top).
On the Brokered Convention, I agree, Rubio has best chance of being the consensus candidate and leave the Tea Party furious. It could be a Rubio-Cruz ticket, but what if Cruz had more delegates. He'd never agree to be VP. If Cruz is on top of the ticket, regardless of whether Trump (or Webb) runs, it will be a rout where the GOP loses the House and Hillary wins 40 states flipping Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Arkansas, Indiana and some random other states. Cruz would spend a lot of time just keeping Texas, which would find a huge surge in Hispanic voter registration, and would flip from a solidly red state to a purple 'battlegound' state into the next cycle of 2020. Rubio might still save Florida as the only battlegroudn state this pairing could win, in that disaster as a dull silver lining of a massive hurricane stormcloud.
On Cruz, his best 'luck' would be to 'lose' enough, to finish second or third in the nomination contest this year, but to be picked VP. Then he could have the full national name-recognition tour of being VP, introduce himself to the nation as the Republicans' fresh face and future, and a proud Latino too, while the loss in the election to Hillary would be 'faulted' to the top of the ticket of course, whoever that would be (Cruz, Kasich, Fiorina). Then next time Cruz would be the clear front-runner and he could run as the first Hispanic on the top of the ticket, against 12 years of Democratic tyranny and the early but plenty of scandals and over-reach that Hillary will have committed in her first term of office. Rubio in 2020 after a VP run now, would be a far stronger candidate. It would seem like a shame to 'destroy' his chances to ever run again, if he ran in 2016 and brought about the huge losses that will come in 2016's wave election for Hillary.
When I write this, that NBC poll is now out. Trump support stabilizing at that 24% range and while NBC measured Carson growing support, he isn't still on par with Trump (some previous poll had them within one point). So Trump is not going down but Carson is gaining, it means that is a slower path to Trump losing his lead, but also, this latest Bush-Trump feud on 'he kept us safe' again, ignites Bush and his supporters, and creates a bizarre 'Twilight Zone' spectacle for all who watch normal news coverage in the world, and not only Fox News.
I get the point, fully. There is a short-hand in conservative language, so when someone says 'W Bush kept us safe' they do not mean W Bush kept us safe all 8 years, because everybody knows the terrorist attack came on September 11, during his Presidency. But they MEAN he kept us safe AFTER the attack. There were no more successful (Islamist) terrorist attacks on US soil. Yes, the terrorists attacked many times in other places and killed Americans too, and other terrorists did strike in the US but Islamist terrorists did not succeed in another spectacular attack after September 11. In that way, AFTER the attack, W Bush did keep the USA (mainland) safe. But now, it is so well known, as a mantra, that many conservatives abbreviate that language into 'Bush kept us safe' which is ridiculous to any neutral outsider (like an Independent voter, there are more of those than Republican voters). Bush did NOT keep the USA safe, September 11 happened eight months into his Presidency and he got ample warning that Osama Bin Laden was planning a major strike, in full hindsight of Osama Bin Laden having hit the World Trade Center previously with the huge truck bomb that exploded, but did not bring down the building (I remember the subway after the blast, I lived in New York at the time).
So I understand how Jeb Bush and his supporters can honestly believe, that what Jeb said was 'true' and cannot be attacked. But because he used the shorthand version, he did not start by saying 'After the September 11 attack, my brother kept us safe' he rather used the shorter version - that is DUMB. It opens him up to ridicule by the general electorate and if he is the nominee, this sound bite will run on endless loops in TV ads by Hillary's team and her SuperPAC which so conveniently connects Jeb Bush to his idiot brother, reminds all Americans about how much they hated W Bush in the end, how it was Obama who got Bin Laden (and Hillary was Secy of State at the time) and portrays Jeb Bush as a reality-denying delusional fanatic. Trump is totally correct in drawing this fight and prolonging it. What is BIZARRE to me, is how the mainstream media ignore the facts and give Jeb the benefit of the doubt in this.
If Jeb was run by a smart campaign, he would have come out right after the debate and said, Jeb misspoke, he meant 'after the attack, my brother..' and that would be over. Now its part of the narrative of Jeb being tied to his brother, and of Jeb being 'his own man' while all his foreign policy experts are the delusional clowns who advised W Bush. We will be greeted as liberators.
Talking about Jeb, what is it with his masochistic need to prod the biggest blunders in recent US politics. Now he's again talking about Gingrich's Moonbase. He should stay away from any of the failures, he has enough of them in his own family closet. The longer we go, the more Jeb is exposed as a paper tiger candidate. And he was supposed to be the strongest. So was Scott Walker, who already folded. The 'Strongest field ever' by Republicans now is represented by Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Dr Ben Carson and Donald Trump. This is much more close to Romney's clown car of 2012 except without the one strong guy, Romney as the only sane voice in the room.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 20, 2015 at 11:24 AM
@Tomi
"The Achilles's Heel of the article is the assumption that a wave cannot form in 2016 because Obama is the incumbent."
I think what he also misses is the demographic discrepancy that has been growing for decades. There is a large "reservoir" of non-GOP voters that have been disenfranchized in various ways. When they get access to the polls thing can start moving fast.
Posted by: Winter | October 20, 2015 at 04:12 PM
Winter
Very good point. That is more like a dam breaking, unstoppable. So for example the gerrymandering advantage that has proppped up extremist GOP candidates. Their views are toxic to the general electorate but if you stack the race so that in your gerrymandered district the voters are mostly Republicans, you can never be 'too conservative' Then, when that gerrymandering is dismantled, you've been the Congressman for the extremes, that will lose in the first 'open' election that you face, when the districts are redrawn. And obviously the Democrats have learned their 2010 mistake and are now working in various ways to undo the gerrymandering advantage. The student vote suppression is another one, the anti-poverty vote and all the changes to limit early voting, etc, are all part of that package. If the modern Republican party truly believed they had the 'best message' they would want MAXIMUM voting. But you are correct, that current world is the opposite they are adding to a dam that is about to break, the higher they get it before it breaks, the worse the damage will be - to future elections and the Republican brand. Their objections to Obama's attempts to bring comprehensive immigration reform - and being against his executive order about the Dreamers - that is poisoning the Hispanic community support against Republicans for at least a generation. Its the largest minority demographic. Short-sighted idiots.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 20, 2015 at 05:24 PM
To all
The GOP race gets interesting for the CNBC debate at the end of October. CNBC gave its eligibility requirements and their polling requirement is 3% averaged from six specific polls (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, and Bloomberg). They will round up, so 2.5% is the actual limit. And they have a time window. It closes tomorrow. So currently ABC does not have a poll counted in, but ABC may release one later today or tomorrow. Bloomberg has a poll in, but that is a month old, they might get a new one in tomorrow.
Based on the 5 polls that currently stand, the same 10 candidates will all make it in, so CNBC Republican debate 'adults table' would have 10 candidates: Trump, Carson, Rubio, Bush, Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee, Paul, Kasich and Christie. But Kasich and Christie are on the cusp. If an ABC poll comes out (but no new Bloomberg poll) then either will need to score 2% to make it in. If they score 1%, they are out of the adults table and have to go to the kids table debate instead.
If the Bloomberg poll is updated today or tomorrow, then their magic number is 3%. at 3% they are out, 4% they are in. That would be against their recent polling. But if BOTH polls come out either today or tomorrow, ABC poll and a new Bloomberg poll, then their 'combined percentage' is 6%. They need any combination out of those two polls that gives 6% or more, if they get 5% they are out. So I mean, one poll gives 4% and the other poll gives 2%, that would be combined 6%. Or if one is 5 and the other is 1. Or of both are 3. Or if one is 6 and the other is 0. But combined 6% or in other words, an exact AVERAGE of the two polls at 3% not lower. 2.5% averaged for the two (meaning 5% combined) would kick that candidate out of the adults table.
But its one day to go.. exciting. And funny, their rules for the kids table says Santorum will be debating alone (I wonder how that will be played). So if Christie or Kasich doesn't fall to the kids' table debate, Santorum would have a monologue debate apparently, ie a two hour televised interview...
Interesting times (oh, and the news broke that Jim Webb has dropped out of the Democratic nomination, as I predicted in my Democratic debate review. Now he's pondering that Independent run. Idiot. He is polling at 5% in his home state of Virginia. And he has no money. But he thinks there is a huge grass roots movement to get him to be President? And that the Democrats screwed him with the debate? He bitched about the time he was getting then stole more time to bitch even more about how he didn't get enough time. Crybaby. Go home).
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 20, 2015 at 05:34 PM
Hi all
Haha that was pretty good timing, actually. Today I find Mike Murphy (Bush's guy) talking deep delegate math over at Bloomberg. He's putting the Jeb Bush spin on it of course, ignores Ted Cruz's delegate chances but argues that even from 3rd or 4th place in the first states, Jeb can grab the delegate lead. When? March 15 haha... What did I tell you? More analysis in the rough style of this blog will be coming, but you read it here first. And Mike Murphy only did the Jeb-friendly spin of the delegate math. Here you have the whole shebang... you're welcome :-)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 22, 2015 at 05:27 AM
Hi all
And now, we have fresh polling from Iowa and Wisconsin, with Carson passing Trump. Maybe the long summer-fling with Trump is finally passing and Carson emerges briefly as flavor-of-the-month for November. Trump in his own inimitable style, already Tweeted in response to the polling in Iowa, accusing Iowans of having brain damage. Yeah... that doesn't go over very well, blaming the voters. I remain confident that Trump's peak has passed and by the first elections his support is further down from now, into the high teens. He could still win Iowa with that level, though. But here is an interesting scenario. The trend has reversed. The story of the invincible Trump switches to the vulnerable Trump. Suddenly all pounce upon him. He reacts with ever more vitriolic responses, which erode more of the soft support he had, while delighting and solidifying his core support. The narrative becomes Trump the rebel vs the rest of the party. His support falls to below 20% and keeps falling. The debates see all attacking Trump, he no longer has the novelty factor to be on TV at will, and some of his most recent 'outrageous' statements now seem either dull or truly moronic, even more of his soft support falls aside, and now Trump starts to poll in third place in many places including dangerously - Iowa the first state to vote.
What happens then? One, Trump could throw millions at the game in advertising (like a normal candidate) and tone down his rhetoric (become politically correct) and maybe stabilize his support. But be unlikely to win in Iowa. He could suddenly quit, before the voting starts, and then say he woulda won but they all ganged up against him. And its possible he has a hissy-fit with the party, and resigns from the process, and declares an Independent run anyway. The core of all of Trump's stump speeches, his debate responses, his press responses is, that he leads 'all the polls' and the others are losers. Now, suddenly, Trump's invincible standing takes a hit. This story could reverse, and if the press angle becomes 'Trump loses in another poll' and its the only thing journalists ask about him, this would grate on Trump far more than on anyone else. It is likely to be another never-before-seen spectacle, as the childish side of Trump will be in full view on Twitter, in TV interviews and on the debates. Lets see if more polls come out with similar findings, but this could be an epic stage in the 2016 race.
One note of caution. These two states, Iowa and Wisconsin, are not very friendly to the core Trump message, and those polls may be outliers. The recent national polling suggests Trump's recent polling decline (while still being in first place) had bottomed out and he was back again climbing in the polls. The most recent national poll had him above 30% again. So this moment might not be upon us yet. But it is coming. It is mathematically impossible for Trump to remain on top of all polls all the time, because of his low ceiling. His polling lead is from a very low base of support, only about a quarter of Republican voters - and the fact that 25% can give you a lead, is because there are 15 candidates still alive. As those start to quit the race, it becomes mathematically easier for a few rivals to catch up to, and some to pass Trump. If this was a two-person race, Trump would be at 30% and the massive front-runner would be at 70%. His 'leadership' is not a majority, it is a plurality out of a huge field of rivals. Remember Trump has a low ceiling. Incidentially, a massive gender gap in those recent polls. Men do like him, women do hate him (women far prefer Dr Carson). And obviously, Trump only scores well with the less-educated. The well educated Republicans reject Trump for just about anyone. Fortunately for Trump, the Republican party has become the party of dumb people (and Fox the news channel for dumb people) so he has that base who are attracted to the illogical but bombastic Trump view to the world.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 22, 2015 at 07:54 PM
These things never go to convention, and conventions don't really have final say over the nomination process anyway. On the Democrat side the super-delegates can through the election anyway they want in the end--particularly since they dominate the rules committee and can change the rules at any time. On the Republican side the caucus voters can be swapped out numerous times as necessary. However, the big reason is that the process snowballs fairly early with a clear winner by mid-March or so.
Posted by: John Fro | October 22, 2015 at 10:38 PM
John?
Did you READ the article? I did the most thorough analysis of the Republican race that has been published anywhere (yet) and only one other political article so far has even touched on this angle, who had VERY similar findings but only on one candidate's view (Mike Murphy's long explanation of the delegate math relating to his guy, Jeb Bush, on Bloomberg a few days ago).
Don't post comments like that if you didn't even read the article! Where do you think I was wrong. I usually delete comments by people who didn't read the full article but I will give you the benefit of the doubt, please read the article fully and come and tell me what you think of what I wrote. If you disagree, tell me why. Don't come here and post generalities which have nothing to do with the ANALYSIS that I have provided here, something nobody else has done into the public domain, but something, that all pundits will be doing about half a year from now. Tell me where I am wrong (or if after reading the article you agree, where you agree)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 23, 2015 at 12:36 AM
Hi all
The big Form Book is now posted. Every stat you could hope for related to the US election. All candidates scored and all the dirt is there too, like who are their personal Billionaires..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 23, 2015 at 08:45 AM
I believe that Donald Trump,despite his bombastic oratory is intelligent enough to recognize
when to tone down. What he has stated is wrong with America is absolutely true and thus far he is the only one of all the candidates that will not stand for failure. After all building a hugely
successful business empire was due to his sheer will to win.No one will Make America Great
Again and, indeed, Richer than ever before as he will. He is all for winning and that is what voters want. He will be America's next President. You can take that to the bank!! You have to be quite brilliant to know how to delegate and surround yourself with the right people....that has been his Trump card. What more can you, the American voters ask?
Frederick Pittera
Posted by: Frederick Pittera | October 27, 2015 at 08:06 PM
Hi All
Ok.. here we go. Now the Wall Street Journal published the analysis by Karl Rove, which does the delegate math and primary sequence and arrives at the same conclusion as I do. This election might well lead to the 'winner' of the delegate hunt only having a plurality, not a majority, and therefore we may have a brokered convention scenario. Haha, not bad if I do the Republican party road to nomination analysis calculation pretty much the same way as Karl Rove in WSJ no less, but three weeks prior to Rove... His article is here
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/the-path-to-a-wild-gop-convention-1446682656-lMyQjAxMTE1MzA4NTEwNzU0Wj
Enjoy
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2015 at 10:22 AM