Sincerely trying (and probably failing) to remove party bias here…
This election has done something that truly scares me a bit… it has shown that something approaching 40% or more of the American people would vote for such a deplorable human being and I am wondering and HOPING this is an anomaly based on the fact that Hillary is so hated on the GOP side.
That any significant percentage of Americans to believe that a man who has declared bankruptcy 6 times and is arguably one of the most racist mainstream candidates ever among literally dozens of other red flags (pu**ygate, not showing his taxes, Trump U, Chinese Steel, housing discrimination charges, et al) is fit to be one of the most powerful men in the world is nearly beyond comprehension.
And I say all of this admitting that Hillary is both unlikable and an establishment candidate in many respects.
So my questions:
Is it an indication/fact that any GOP nominee for POTUS regardless of who they are and regardless of the Democratic rival is going to get 1/3 to 1/2 of the popular vote? I mean didn’t Mondale get 40% despite getting curb stomped in every single state but his own in 84?
If someone like David Duke were nominated by the GOP and simply lied/pandered to the GOP base that he was no longer as radical, would he still garner 40% of the vote?
My point is that while Mondale made Dan Quayle look positively energetic he was not a deplorable human. So this election makes me wonder if the idea of a two party system seems potentially more harmful to our country than I have ever believed before.
As a former “young” Republican voter in the 90s, I still have some conservative leanings, mostly on the economy. But the idea that a single “normal” American (removing the <10% who are radical, racist, crazy) would vote for a man with low morals, low integrity and few redeeming qualities as a human, to be our representative to the world in downright scary.
In a half-hearted defense of Trump supporters, I don’t think they take any of that into account when they make their decision. They don’t care about the facts (and in many cases are probably unaware of them). They vote on the basis of “how does the candidate make you feel?”
I think someone extremely popular and charismatic like Obama would have kept him around 35%. Against most standard Democrats then yeah 40% is his bottom.
Agreed. Especially due to the plurality-based 2-party system (and mostly WTA Electoral Vote apportionments), at least that many will vote for whoever one or the other major party nominates, if only out of a desire to deny office to the others (who they may consider inhuman alien-agent crooks in league with Satan who want to destroy the country for sadistic pleasure).
I’m sure much of the support comes from people who support the party platform rather than Trump himself. I suspect the same thing would happen if someone with similar flaws was running as a Democrat. Imagine if Trump got the Democratic nomination and Cruz was the Republican nominee. You might strongly dislike both candidates, so the different party platforms may influence your decision more than the person running for president.
This. They’re a lot of people who’ll vote the straight party line no matter what. Hell, even Alvin Greene managed to get 30 percent of the vote in his Senate run.
Trump has co-opted some traditional Democratic candidate voters. Primarily not the ones who put much thought into their voting for Democrats before either, but the right Democratic candidate may have held them. Countering that, many voters traditionally voting Republican will vote for Hillary because Trump has been Trump.
Many people who traditionally vote Republican and haven’t been favoring Trump will vote for him anyway once they are in the booth because that’s the way voters are.
And this is it. People are voting for Trump for many reasons. Protest, anti-establishment, Supreme Court, not Clinton, etc. I’ve yet to come across anyone who’s voting for Trump because he’s Trump.
Yes, he would, but Joe Biden, for instance, would probably have lower negatives. His numbers would be anywhere from high 40s to low 50s and pretty consistently. He would throttle Trump.
I think we also need to take into account the SCOTUS, as that is a factor in a lot of Trump supporters who have shifted into “He’s bad, but I don’t want Hillary picking several justices”. I know every year they say this may be the most consequential election ever, but the SCOTUS is a big deal to many people and I think that has shifted some votes. If Scalia hadn’t died and we didn’t have some 80 or 90 year old judges, I could see that depressing Trump’s turnout by a few percentages.
As a follow-on to this, I find it interesting that one thing Trump is demonstrating is that he can be very close to Hillary while spending only half as much.
So, the question to me is - how much does money really matter in presidential races? From this thread, the theory goes that ~40% on either side are going to show up and vote for the party’s candidate no matter what. So, the money is essentially being spent on the slim margins between. Whereas we are seeing that the small advantage Hillary has is costing her twice as much as what Trump is spending?