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Actual Analysis Indicates We Aren’t Doomed
Donald Trump scored a third straight victory on Tuesday night in the Nevada Caucuses.
Sick of hearing about The Donald’s string of allegedly crushing victories (and being numerate, unlike the saps who follow Bernie Sanders), I decided to check out what was going on under the hood.
So, just as any decent engineer should, I opened up Excel and plunked in information such as we have it. Here’s the picture that emerged:
It seems that despite Trump’s supposed strength, the reality is that two thirds of the Republican electorate is actually arrayed against Trump. The delegate count favors him wildly and doesn’t reflect the weakness of his frontrunner status.
Trump tends to perform less well as the size of the sample increases; For instance, Nevada represented just 10 percent of the total votes cast in South Carolina, with lowly Ben Carson dwarfing Trump’s Nevada total. In short, Trump is once again, the tallest midget — not a colossus bestriding the horizon.
Having examined the numbers in detail at this point, my advice to conservatives is: Don’t panic. Yet. There’s still time to derail Trump given a couple of conditions:
- Ben Carson and John Kasich leave the race and endorse not-Trump;
- Rubio and Cruz reach détente for the good of the Party and the nation.
Offer Kasich the position of Postmaster General. Tell Ben he can host the National Prayer Breakfast live from the Great Pyramid. Do whatever you have to do — but get them out of the race.
The bottom line is this: There aren’t enough Trump supporters in larger primaries to beat the remainder of the party if it’s united against him. The numbers don’t lie. The only thing standing between us and defeating him is the ego of the assorted participants.
Published in General
It’s dangerous to assume that all the voters would unite against Trump – I think its equally likely that a lot of those voters break Trump when their candidate drops out.
Objection, your honor! Assumes facts not in evidence.
We do not know how a Trump vs. one candidate primary would work. Presuming that he’s automagically (not a typo) defeated should candidates X,Y and Z leave the race is not logical.
4/5 of the voters in your analysis are against Rubio or Cruz. That doesn’t sound much like a path to victory based on JL’s good input in #1.
The best data that we have thus far (exit polls) indicates that Cruz and Rubio are essentially the strong second choice of the other guy’s people. It’s not out of the realm of possibility of seeing a greater than 2:1 or perhaps 3:1 conversion rate of voters from Cruz/Rubio to the other.
I don’t know who Kasich’s voters are. Mailmen, perhaps?
Except for the fact that Trump’s negatives are historically high. He and Hillary are competing to be the least popular party frontrunners in history.
Hey guys, the Libertarian Party exists…just saying…
When there are 17 or 3 choices, my choosing “A” means I’m for “A”. It says little about why or even if I may be against “B” or “C”. Only NRO and its acolytes “assume” a vote for “other than Trump”=a vote AGAINST Trump. And we all know the ditty about “assume”
Knives exist. I can use one to cut off my nose in order to get even with my face too.
I could join the Tycho Brahe club.
Did you see this when I posted elsewhere?? It has histograms explaining why you’re right! Go, young engineer!! Go!
The Stanford Political Journal: Why Donald Trump Will Not Win the Nomination.
Mea culpa… I missed that one somehow!
I think Fox News has disproven your analysis. When you look at the breakout of the shift in voters of if their candidate were to depart, it does not show complete opposition to Trump. Many will go on the Trump wagon.
And winning in the process.
The bandwagoing effect is both real and hard to quantify.
Think about how well-off we would be if we were to put a person who was actually well-regarded at the top of the ticket as opposed to a reality-show grotesque?
Admit it, you are not looking under the hood, you just hate the pimp mobile.
This is very dreamy engineering (at least five hopeful assumptions in one sentence). I understand. Who wants to wake up to a nightmare?
More analysis from 538. Key paragraph for non-Trump supporters trying to avoid despair:
On the other hand
This is what we’re fighting at this point. Gotta convince friends, family, and fellow voters to ignore both the media narrative and the many flaws of the “non-Trump” candidates.
I’m with you Majestyk. I’d rather see Cruz as Attorney General than VP. He’d be awesome cleaning up that department and bringing a little law and order back to the US of A. Plus he’d be well set up for a future run for President.
I’d really like to see Kasich drop out and go away, but I wouldn’t be too desperately offput if he were made VP to appease the establishment types.
I think Cruz would be a better President than Rubio, but I tend to agree with those who think Rubio is our best shot, considering the present state of the race.
But man oh man. What a challenge for Cruz’s ego! He’d not only have to let his rival best him, he’d have to rally his supporters to get behind a guy they’ve learned to despise.
I don’t even think I have the will to argue about this anymore. Trump his supporters and most importantly his “conservative” media sycophants can all rot. I thought ill of the American voter when they re-elected Obama. Now I think they are incurable. I’ll vote against him in Illinois if that will even make a difference then I’m checking out from the process.
I agree. This may be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Our two best bets are either soft on core policy and inconsistent at best or untrustworthy at worst.
This isn’t just about Rubio and Cruz. This goes back much farther.
Republicans stand for nothing outside of Not Democrat. The chickens are coming home to roost including a big loud rooster leaving droppings everywhere.
The South Carolina numbers in the spreadsheet aren’t correct but they’re close enough– other than the fact that Rubio finished 1,068 votes ahead of Cruz, not behind him.
More importantly the spreadsheet indicates that Cruz and Rubio combined maintained roughly the same percentage of the vote they had in South Carolina. Kasich, Carson and the dropout Bush shed votes. It looks like they went to Trump not Cruz and Rubio.
Majestyk, Mad props for breaking out Excel on this project.
This and two other Member Feed posts should be immediately blasted to the Main Feed and tweeted to the world. Some good stuff going on this morning.
I’ve argued for a while that who wins the nomination is more a function of how many moderates versus conservatives are running.
Winning seems to be more about being on the side with fewer candidates to split the vote.
Trump can easily win the nomination if it remains a three or four way race to the convention, even with a majority of the party vehemently opposed to him. The problem is neither Cruz nor Rubio will step aside.
So, get ready for President Sanders.
If Cruz and Rubio can’t come to terms then I’ll blame Mike Lee for not putting the two candidates in a locked room without refreshments until a settlement is reached. No pressure Senator Lee but the fate of the nation rests with you. Hopefully, you’re not lounging about in your pajamas somewhere having a Bloody Mary with a huge stalk of celery. There’s work to be done, man. Get to it!
Maj,
Then what you are saying is that the democrats have the Zombie vote locked up but Trump is tapping into the Werewolf element. Werewolves are small in number and blend into the normal population unless there is a full moon or a low turn out caucus.
I would add that hookers and blackjack table dealers have an inordinate number of Werewolves among them. Also, Harry Reid is a Zombie but since his brother beat him up he has been keeping plenty of Werewolves on staff. All of this has contributed to Nevada being an outlier. (In many more ways than one.)
One can never underestimate the importance of good demographic analysis.
Regards,
Jim
I love the criticism of Rubio by all the experts for not attacking Trump directly. I imagine Rubio pacing his hotel room with his advisors arrayed around. Rubio looks out the window and exclaims, “Won’t some wealthy donor an/or donors rid me of this troublesome candidate?!” Silently, the advisors leave the room.
But seriously, what good are these PACs?
Hah! :)
This analysis seems sound except that this year very little makes sense.
I was led to believe that the deep bench of quality GOP governors and a general anti-Washington sentiment would make it hard for Senators Cruz or Rubio to stay in. I was told that Trump and Carson were fun distractions who would leave early. Trump has made statements that would cause any other GOP campaign to crash and burn.
Meanwhile, Cruella de Benghazi needs union bosses, the DNC and media muscle to get her past the world’s oldest living Soviet stooge who is now a darling of America’s youth. Explain that to me.
It increasingly looks like Trump is the anointed middle finger being raised by Middle America towards DC. I have no idea how that plays out. The MSM will savage him but in this year that may actually help. Who the hell knows?
All I know is that bunker needs some fresh paint, more ammo and canned goods and that I have William Devane on speed dial.
On the morning of March 16th (or shortly after), if we still have more than one candidate facing Trump, you can look forward to President Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, President Rubio or Cruz. There, I called the whole election. You’re welcome.
Why do you hate liberty?
Within the next two weeks, either Cruz or Rubio needs to bow out, endorse the other, and strongly encourage his supporters to vote for the other.
Otherwise . . . well, as Joseph de Maistre famously wrote, “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”