In another thread I mentioned how a decent gop candidate would probably be getting 50% of the vote, while Trump is getting about 40%.
McCain got 46% and Romney got 47%. So I think 50% is a fair estimate, possibly high (maybe a good gop candidate would be at 48%).
But who are the 7-10% of voters (15-20% of Republicans) who would normally support the gop candidate but do not support Trump?
College educated women? Moderates like Kasich? Evangelicals turned off by his endless affairs? Big business conservatives turned off by his economic populism? Minorities who are voting against the gop by even wider margins than normal due to all the attacks on minorities?
Had anyone studied that 15-20% who’d normally vote Republican but who are not doing do for Trump?
Count me firmly in that 10% “Never Trump” camp. I’m writing in McMullin this year.
And my mother, who has always been conservative Republican, says she will vote for Hillary.
Most of the “Never Trump” GOPers that I know are young conservative Christians. AIUI, many of them are “Never Trump” because they believe that God will hold them accountable for their vote for such a vile person, or because Christians should not vote out of fear - i.e., should not fear a Hillary presidency because God is ultimately in control, even if Hillary’s views run counter to their beliefs - that God does not want them to take a “Lesser of two evils” mindset to the voting booth (that is, if Trump is even the lesser of two evils).
My in laws are all Vietnamese immigrants who have always voted GOP due to their social conservatism and anti-communism, but are voting for Hillary this cycle. Unsurprisingly immigrants in general aren’t super nuts about the vocally anti-immigrant candidate.
According to polling, I believe the largest shift has been amongst college educated whites though. I think there’s a pretty large contingent of educated Republicans who were OK with tolerating dog-whistle racism in order to get lower taxes or whatever, but can’t quite stomach fog-horn racism.
I would guess that having a college education and/or being female are the biggest markers in the never-Trump demographic.
My mother’s faith is playing a role in her decision to sit this election out. She’s a Southern Baptist, and they split with the GOP over Syrian refugee resettlement. But she’s also educated and has the critical thinking skills to realize that Trump is a dangerous con artist. If it were anyone else she would happily vote Republican.
It is a lot of conservative Christians who normally vote Republican without even considering an alternative, but are now voting 3rd party. (Hillary is still the devil)
More than 70% of conservative evangelicals are still supporting Trump, but the 30% is a sizable chunk of the GOP base.
I won’t be voting for him, and it has nothing to do with education, religion, morals, race relations, immigration, taxes, emails, women, or the price of tea in China.
The poll results we were discussing in the other thread suggest that college education is a significant factor in moving voters away from Trump. That particular poll wasn’t broken down by religion but I suspect that religious conservatism would be another factor working against Trump, and a very different largely non-overlapping demographic from the college-educated one. Yet a third factor is the extent to which he is disliked by blacks and Hispanics. It’s actually amazing that he has as much support as he does, especially when you consider the ambivalence about him within the Republican establishment itself.
There are a lot of people who don’t want either candidate, making it a toss-up to them. They may end up going more for Johnson than voting for Hillary, or not voting at all. This is not just a battle between the parties, it is also an internal struggle within the GOP. If you are a loyal party member and see Trump as a bad thing for the party it’s easy to justify voting for anyone but Trump or voting for no one as working toward the party’s best interest. They aren’t going to see Trump as a better alternative to Hillary.
Trump may even get higher numbers from Republican voters turning out for the congressional candidates. Once they’re in the voting booth they may just vote the party line anyway. I’d still expect to see a low Republican turnout in some states.
Almost everyone at Redstate.com has been NeverTrump from the start, which to me was a shocking yet pleasant surprise. They’ve been downright reasonable over there during this whole election cycle.
Yeah but don’t about 70-80% of white evangelicals (the white part is important, black protestants are heavily democrat and white catholics are split) tend to vote GOP anyway? So Trump is doing about as expected.
Also Trump is doing better than Romney with white evangelicals.
But for 80% of regular republicans, these are not good enough reasons to not vote for him. Their desire to see the supreme court stay conservative, to regain the presidency, maintaining party loyalty and stopping Hillary is more important to 80% of republican voters.
According to 538, Trump is winning men by +5, losing women by -15.
Romney women men by +4, lost women by -11. So the % who are men who prefer the GOP is about the same, but slightly more women are anti-trump.
However, again, which women? College educated women?
We may not know the answer until after the election and the exit polls are released.
In 2012, 47% of voters had a college education, and 53% were women, 72% were white.
Granted, whites have a higher rate of college education, but those numbers imply 18% of voters were college educated white women. Due to racial differences, I’d guess 19-22% is a closer estimate for the % in 2012 who were college educated white women
If you assume Romney won college educated white women 53%, but Trump is getting 27%, then about 5% of voters who supported Romney in 2012 were college educated white women who do not support Trump in 2016.
