What will happen if Trump actually gets the nomination?

Politics & Elections
1

It seems like either Trump is a cat on his 8th life (after Birther, “Rapists,” John McCain, Obama and future black prez remarks, 3rd party threat, Megyn Kelly, etc.) ready to use up his 9th, or he’s simply unstopped because no GOP candidate can match the assets he has brought to the race: independence from the big money interests, outsider status, success in something other than politics, plain speak.

Trump leads in all the polls, and has lead more consistently and for longer than any of the 2011-2012 flavors of the week, like Bachmann, Cain, Newt, Santorum, etc. What if Trump actually gets the nomination? I’m starting to think he could win the nod. Maybe the GE, but only if the party actually goes with him. Will the GOP establishment get behind him, or will Trump meet the fate of Goldwater, who saw establishment pols walk out of the convention?

I wonder because one of the problems for Trump is that his eschewing of big money might make downticket GOPers scared that if they support him, downticketers might not get the donations they will need to their races from the corporations, Kochs, etc. (house, senate, gov). Downticketers might be scared of losing ethnic minority votes if they’re in districts with them. After Trump has hit so many with personal insults, I find it hard to think about the idea that establishment will just stand by. The establishment likes themselves and their own careers more than they hate the Clintons.

Could Trump win if the establishment gets behind him? Even for Monica, Trump’s activities are possibly less evangelical in terms of women and girls, which could get evangies to stay home. Yet Trump is popular with the working class whites Hillary intends to contest harder than Obama. Trump will likely get clobbered in the Hispanic and black votes too. However, he might be able to get disaffected moderates if Obama is unpopular in 2016.

(Sanders will fade, you watch. Tho if Sanders got the nod, he’d lose badly IMO. Biden’s not running; its a sword of damocles on Iran. Nate Silver already has pointed out why its just speculation and agitation)

2

*Hey, it’s me again
Plain to see again
Please can I see you every day *

You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear

*Words don’t come out right
I try to say it oh so right
I hope you understand my meaning *
Cheap Trick : Voices

America and Donald Trump, a match made in Heaven !

Trump — Romney 2016 !

3

If Trump gets the nomination, or runs independent, the next President will be the Democratic nominee. Additionally, if Trump is the Republican, it may splinter the party beyond repair; certainly it will hurt many downticket Republicans. I think Republican leaders know this and will resist him at every stage.

What does this mean? Last I checked, most people still supported the Iran deal.

4

Last I checked (with actual sources/data), people are undecided and tepid about it. Last I checked, they disapproved on his performance on Iran by a decent margin. And if it goes thru, it will have helped that the party’s frontrunner didn’t make herself a powerful voice against it, given its lack of public popularity.

5

If Trump gets the Republican nomination, as opposed to running third party, he has a fairly good chance of winning depending on his opponent, and the circumstances surrounding that opponent.

First off, there’s no incumbent running, and there is a tendency for the people to go for a change in that circumstance. If Hillary is the Dem’s candidate she could end up immersed in scandal or just not presenting herself well. Although Trump is no common man he is more in touch with the average Joe than she is. Sanders is very appealing to Democrats right now, and he is the opposite of Trump, so the tide could swing his way, but he may not be able to bring any conservatives over. The idea that O’Malley or Chafee have a chance is absurd. In the midst of war or threat of one perhaps Webb has a chance. Biden is an unknown at the moment, until he declares it would be hard to measure, but he makes a good target for the Republican smear machine.

So if Teh Donald gets the nomination, it’s entirely possible that the race will be close, and that he could win. He’ll probably lower the turnout in the Republican base, however he may be the Democrats best bet for increasing their base to show up on election day.

6

Don’t think so. It is more likely that if Trump is the nominee Clinton (the most likely democrat) is looking at a landslide victory like the ones seen from the days of Reagan.

As Nate Silver pointed out, the reality is that independents are less supportive of Trump, and I do think that the woman’s vote will be very strong for Clinton.

7

If T-Rump is nominated, expect a debacle not seen since Dukakis. Democrats win the House, Senate, and many governorships and state houses. The Republican Party splits into its Tea and Corporate halves. There will be dancing in the streets and the Dow breaks 30,000 by 2018. Suitable mountains will be scouted out for a new Mt Rushmore featuring the Clintons, Obama, and LBJ.

8

Agreed, but a Trump nomination is essentially impossible. For that to happen, the moneyed interests who control the Republican leadership would have to be convinced that this brainless loose cannon offers them a better outcome than establishment candidates like Bush or Walker. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which that could possibly happen short of a zombie apocalypse. Polls at this stage don’t mean anything.

9

General election polls put Trump at least ten points behind every conceivable challenger, including the ones that nobody has ever heard of. And it’s not like he’s low on name recognition, so there’s no plausible way for him to make up a deficit that large. The only impact of Trump being the nominee would be that it would free up Democratic primary voters to “vote their conscience” without needing to worry about their preferred candidate’s electability. If Trump wins the nomination, then we’ll inaugurate President Sanders.

10

I do think that is the most likely result, but it is not the only result. I think most of the noise about Hillary won’t amount to anything. If there is a scandal there it could change everything. I think it’s pretty unlikely Trump even gets the nomination no matter how much support he gets. He’s not an insider, and that makes him very vulnerable.

11

That could happen, possibly thru a brokered convention (ie he gets a plurality but not absolute majority of delegates), and the other candidates gang up on him. But then GOP turnout would be superlow, as Trump would be banned from a 3rd party run due to sore-loser laws in enough states, and he’d decline to endorse the nominee as a result of the “backroom deal.”

12

In that case the latino and woman vote goes to the dem and you get a democratic win with 340+ EVs.

13

The problem, and the ace in the hole for this country, is Trump’s ego. It’s bigger than Texas. The more he’s in the spotlight, the more he’s going to look like an egomaniac. Sooner or later he’s going to do something that’s just too stupid for even a Republican to accept. I just hope it’s sooner than later.

14

I think he’s going to surprise people by looking more and more presidential through the primaries, but it won’t be enough to get the nomination. He’ll actually raise the turnout from the Republican base and I don’t think he’ll win a single state in the primaries. But I remember the way so many people laughed at Ronald Reagan. Granted, Reagan was a more experienced politician, and better liar than Trump, but we don’t know what will happen in either party as the primaries proceed, or what the mood of the nation will be following the conventions. I also remember Bush the Elder running against Dukakis and the SNL skit, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”. And I remember at this point in 2007 when people few people had ever heard of Barack Obama and thought the idea of him being nominated or winning the election was ridiculous. And the same thing happened in 2000 with Bush the Dumber.

The only reasonable assumption right now is that Hillary Clinton will be the next president, but reasonable assumptions don’t materialize that easily in the world of politics. I guarantee you that the Hillary campaign is already at work preparing a strategy for a possible Trump nomination. They don’t think the idea is ridiculous. If they do then they could be setting themselves up for a fall. The best way to score an upset in any competition is to get your opponent to take you to take you lightly. That’s how Reagan, both Bushes, and Obama became president.

15

If Trump gets the nomination, the Republicans become the 21st Century equivalent of the Whigs.

If Trump wins, the US becomes the 21st Century equivalent of the Ottoman Empire.

16

If Trump gets the nomination, it’s Barry Goldwater all over again. many Republicans will not support the nominee. It’s actually a very sensible thing to do. One of the overlooked aspects of the 1972 election is that although George McGovern got absolutely destroyed, because the Democratic Party didn’t back him all that much meant they didn’t lose much in Congress. I think they actually gained a few seats in that election.

So basically, if Trump was the nominee, the Republicans let him spend his own money and just concentrate on keeping Congress. “While we respect the will of our voters, we cannot in good conscience support the nominee.”

17

If Trump wins, late-night televison will be more fun to watch. The standup comedians will have unlimited fodder.
When Hillary gets elected, late nite TV will be boring. Who wants that?
:slight_smile:

18

Oh really? Keep in mind that Bill Clinton will be in the White House wandering the halls with nothing to do. I have a feeling there won’t be many female interns in the White House.

19

I would love to see that happen-what better way to tell Trump supporters that they have been betrayed by the “cuckservatives”-that they will never be properly represented by the Republican Party? Unlike Goldwater and McGovern who were in their own ways very elitist candidates (hence the fairly decent number of odd left-libertarian types on the Net who declare they’d have voted for both over Johnson and Nixon respectively), Trump is a very populist candidate which raises the question of whether there is not a “shy Trump voter” effect much as there is a Bradley effect or similar “shy voter” effects for European far-right parties.

OTOH, considering Goldwater and McGovern in many ways represented the future of their parties albeit in a more extreme form, that may indicate the Republican Party will evolve in a nationalist-populist direction along the lines of the French National Front or the Danish People’s Party, which would be bad news for the Democrats (which would then risk in a two-party system becoming essentially a left-neoliberal party of the elites and racial minorities).

20

one thing about Trump I think gets lost easily, is that while he says in the GOP primary “I’m so rich I cannot be bought,” the not being bought part is nice for a GE, but the being “really rich” part might not, especially how he did things like letting Gaddafi rent his property. Or if they turn up that he did business with Iranians knowingly, and GOP primary voters are less rich-guy suspicious than independents and Dems, possibly some Republican-leaning non primary-voters.

What Adaher said; Dems gained Senate seats in 1972. Those Congressional seats (both House and Senate) need Koch money. Thats why I think Trump=Goldwater 2.0

While Goldwater repped the future of the GOP, the Dems moved far away from McGovern, hence the period of 1992-now in which Dems are the dominant Presidential party, as things like welfare and crime were things McGovern, as well as Mondale/Dukakis got ripped on, that Clinton changed the Dems on. I don’t see the GOP becoming like the National Front or Danish People’s Party. I’d bet they just do what the Dems did in 1992, assuming they can find a nominee. Thats why Christie and Kasich were stupid as hell to get into 2016 instead of waiting it out to 2020. I bet on illegals, the GOP will create a unified platform of both blanket amnesty for people currently here, but build a wall, as a GOP Third Way, and make it national, as Dems did welfare reform in the 1990s and death penalty. By 2020, conservatives are all stripes, as Dems in 1992, will be so hungry for victory the ideologues will be shut up. The entrenchment of today’s Democrat and Republican parties are too strong for either a new party altogether (unless we get IRV) or an extreme shift in one.