Thursday, March 03, 2016

Things that make you go hmmm...

Writing for the Washington Post, Todd Zywicki notices something:
Following the South Carolina primary, an interesting article by Michael Harrington went around Facebook that speculated that Donald Trump’s victory in the South Carolina primary was attributable to Democrats voting in the Republican (open) primary. One of the good things about Harrington’s article is that he put out a testable hypothesis — that turnout in the Democratic primary a few days later would be less than 390,000. In fact, it was 367,000. Harrington concludes that had South Carolina had a closed primary, Ted Cruz would have won the primary there. I don’t know him and the author seems to be anti-Trump based on other things he has written — but the fact that his prediction was borne out adds some independent verification to his thesis.
Why does this matter? Back to Zywicki:
Because so far the primary calendar has been heavily tilted toward open primaries. But there have been four closed elections: the Iowa caucus, the Nevada caucus, and Super Tuesday’s Oklahoma primary and Alaska caucus. Ted Cruz won three of those four closed elections.

So here’s where it potentially gets interesting. Although the media are looking forward to March 15, this Saturday (March 5) there are four Republican primaries/caucuses: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine. All are closed.
So does that mean Ted Cruz is going to win these closed events? We'll find out soon enough. Underlying what we've seen so far are two interesting questions:

  • Who are the Trump voters? and
  • What is their motivation?
We've talked quite a bit, maybe too much, about motivation here. I've also assumed that many Trump voters are disaffected and that they are either new to the political process, or they've been away for a long time. But are we certain that we know who the Trump voters are? I'm not certain at all.

Meanwhile, other questions arise:
  • If a series of closed primaries delivers more wins for Ted Cruz, what does that tell you about the Republican base?
  • Are there enough potential extra votes to be had in the Trump camp to make up for the losses the party suffers if Trump becomes the standard-bearer?
If Trump gets through to the general election, his candidacy is a complete roll of the dice. The problem for Republicans, particularly in the last two cycles, is that the other side was more motivated and the candidates the Republicans ran were hesitant to fight. Trump will fight. So will Ted Cruz. I'm not sure which one would fight more effectively. Trump's genius in dealing with opponents is his ability to boil the insult down into a soundbite -- the notion that Jeb Bush is "low energy" was perfect. Cruz can't do that. If left to his own devices, Cruz will speak in paragraphs. But then again, if Cruz is the nominee, he'll have more time to prosecute the case against the Democrats generally, and Hillary Clinton in particular. And he'll be good at it.

And all that leads to the most important question:
  • Do you trust your brain, or do you trust your gut?
Well?


10 comments:

Gino said...

Elections are won in the gut. There's plenty of evidence to this already, so why is it even a question?

Mr. D said...

Elections are won in the gut. There's plenty of evidence to this already, so why is it even a question?

Because I'm not sure it's as categorical as you assert. I don't think it is.

Gino said...

Name one election where the decision came down to reasoned debate instead of a personality contest.

Mr. D said...

Name one election where the decision came down to reasoned debate instead of a personality contest.

1976 Republican primary
1980 general election
1988 general election
1994 congressional elections

Brian said...

Seems like the GOP is trapped; barring a serious reversal of fortune, neither Cruz nor Rubio is going to win enough delegates to win the nomination outright. The best they can hope for is a contested convention. And if that happens and the convention goes to anyone other than Trump (I'm assuming he has a plurality of delegates going in), it seems like an awful lot of people are going to walk. Hillary wins the general in a landslide.

Christie is smarter than he looks. He's realized Trump is now the only candidate that can plausibly win the nomination and the general. (I think both Rubio and Kasich would have a better shot in the general under normal circumstances, but they can't win the nomination as it stands; and at this point, if a contested convention goes to one of them, they lose too many Trump voters.)

You know who looks really smart right now? Scott Walker.

Gino said...

Mark: I'm talking just the general election, which is always decided by the nonidealogues in the middle.

Mr. D said...

Mark: I'm talking just the general election, which is always decided by the nonidealogues in the middle.

Right. And I stand by my examples. In 1980, Carter wasn't making a reasoned debate, but Reagan did. And he never wavered. People figured it out. In 1988 neither candidate had a winning personality, so it was decided more on reason, i.e., do you want a continuation of the Reagan era, or do you want to turn things over to a self-styled technocrat? There was plenty of mudslinging in that campaign, but in the end the decision was based on that question.

jerrye92002 said...

My concern is the GOP circular firing squad is getting the ol' band back together. Right now, the big guns and small minds are heaping negatives on The Donald so that, when he DOES get the nomination, Hillary can simply replay all of those negative ads and statements and waltz into the WH unopposed. Stupid, stupid. If the GOP wants to go negative, it should hold fire until HIL gets the nomination, then unload.

Bike Bubba said...

I tend to mostly agree with Brian, but with one caveat; if the FBI and DOJ personnel working on Hilliary's email issues find their stones and go public when Lynch/Obama scuttle an indictment, I think even Democrats see the problem.

And having worked in defense, I am very sure that anyone not named "Clinton" would have been indicted months ago if 2000 sensitive and top secret documents had been found on their personal computer. TRW made that VERY clear to me when I worked for them in the 1990s; they were NOT going to get burned by a "Falcon and the Snowman" situation again. So it's not a question of whether she ought to be indicted or not--it's 18 USC 1924, clear as day--but whether the President is going to stonewall justice or not.

jerrye92002 said...

Bike, I think you are right all around, but I simply don't see it happening. First of all, the FBI will probably follow orders to suppress everything until after the election. It is simply not in the administration's interest to open the can of worms starting with appointing the Wicked Witch, and then having it known (impossible otherwise) that the WH received emails from this server, furthering the crime. And you can bet that, even in the scenario you describe, Obama will paper it over and the major media will supply the paper to do it. I don't think it is possible that the electorate will let Madame off the hook on the issue, even without an indictment, but the GOP infighting may just let her waltz into the WH and pardon herself.