The Future President, Donald Trump

It really does nothing for your credibility that you ally with scum like Hawkeye and his clone/proxy.

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It really does nothing for your credibility that you ally with scum like Hawkeye and his clone/proxy.

Two people who meet on the road and figure out that they agree on something are very rarely allies.


Good people tell the truth.

Scum lie.


I know which one I am.

not the unnecessary rudeness toward ehBeth.

Ezra Klein

Right now, the betting markets have Donald Trump at about 20 percent to be the Republican nominee. Do you think that's too high or too low?

Alan Abramowitz

I think it might be a little too low. I certainly don't think he's a strong favorite, but there's no way of really coming up with an accurate prediction of these things. Forecasting nomination contests is a fool's game, I think. I saw what Nate Silver posted on FiveThirtyEight, and what he's saying is reasonable based on the history of these presidential nominations, but there are a couple things I think are different this year.

Silver makes the case that the polls at this point don't necessarily mean much, and you can get big swings in voter preferences in relatively short periods of time. And that's true. What I think is different is Republicans are tuned in to a much greater degree than they were at this point in previous nomination contests. You can see that in polling when you ask whether voters are paying attention, and you can see that in ratings for the debates. The idea that voters aren't tuned in yet and won't make up their minds till January or later may not prove as true as it has in the past.

Because of the higher level of interest and attention this year, these early polls may be more predictive of what's likely to happen.

The second point is Trump isn't only leading in national polling. He's leading in every state poll I've seen. He seems to be ahead in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, Nevada.

Voters say he's a strong leader who will shake up Washington, and that's what they want. He's the leader on big issues like immigration, terrorism, the economy. And the Washington Post/ABC News poll found a plurality — even more voters than actually support him — think he's the candidate with the best chance of winning in November.

If Trump does start to fade out, the good news, from the standpoint of Republican leaders and strategists, is that Ben Carson seems to be beginning to fade in support. The bad news is that the guy who is really well-positioned to pick up Carson and even Trump supporters is Ted Cruz. And Cruz right now is right on Trump's heels in Iowa. He has a very strong organization there, and it's an electorate he could do very well with.

So, to me right now, it looks like there are three potential Republican nominees, and that would be Trump, Cruz, and Rubio.

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Ezra Klein

A lot of the skepticism to Trump — and I include my skepticism here — assumes that at some point, Republican voters take the cue from Republican elites that this guy either is a bad bet in the general or ideologically untrustworthy. But I don't know how much more strongly the Republican Party, and frankly the entire media, could be sending that signal. I don't think I've ever seen such a diverse array of elected officials, party influencers, and media outlets hammer home the same point so relentlessly. So I don't know why it is that we're confident the signal will start working given its complete and total failure up till this point.

Alan Abramowitz

There have been very clear signals already from the Republican establishment, from Fox News, from conservative pundits — it's been clear they think this is really bad for the Republican Party, but it hasn't worked so far.

There have been repeated moments when Trump said something outrageous and there were predictions that this is the beginning of the end of Trump, and then he does better. This goes all the way back to his attacks on John McCain's war record and his sexist attacks on Megyn Kelly. These things don't seem to hurt him. Among his supporters, they take that as a sign that this is a guy who speaks his mind, says a lot of things they agree with — and besides which, who do you trust, Donald Trump or the mainstream media that is telling you he's lying?

Ezra Klein

It seems to me that every time Trump refuses to buckle in one of those fights with the media he proves the central idea of his campaign, which is that he won't be like those Republicans who go to Washington and then get cowed by the media and the special interests into compromising with Democrats and giving up their principles. Every time he refuses to give ground, it's proof that he won't disappoint them by giving ground in office, too.

Alan Abramowitz

I think that's exactly the way they feel, and I don't see what changes that in the next couple of months. It's hard to imagine him doing things much more outrageous than what he's already done.

If they nominate him...he doesn't get enough support to win

If they nominate him...he doesn't get enough support to win...and almost certainly will lose in a landslide.

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If they nominate him...he doesn't get enough support to win

"Oh sure the guy has been able to make it here, but he could never get to the next level!" are famous last words. Talented people tend to rise to whatever level of bar is placed in front of them.

I am pretty sure that you know this, but have chosen to play dumb for us.

SNAP OUT OF IT!

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If they nominate him...he doesn't get enough support to win...and almost certainly will lose in a landslide.

Pardon me. What kind of fantasy land are you living in? Polls show quite a few Republicans whipping Hillatard. And Trump is one of them.

I noticed that in the Fox News poll.

Quinnipiac’s November 4 poll measured Clinton against the four Republicans with the highest percentage of national GOP support for the nomination: Donald Trump, who in the poll has 24 percent support for the Republican nomination; Ben Carson, with 23 percent; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
80%
, with 14 percent; and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
97%
, with 13 percent.

The poll also included a fifth hypothetical matchup. Curiously, although former Gov. Jeb Bush comes in fifth in GOP support with 4 percent, in contrast with Gov. Chris Christie who has 3 percent and did not even qualify for the main stage for the upcoming Fox Business/Wall Street Journal debate—and despite the fact that Bush has an immensely larger war chest and campaign organization than Christie—Quinnipiac chose to poll Christie against Clinton, but not Bush.

Carson beats Clinton by the widest margin, 50 to 40 percent. This is followed by Rubio and Christie, both of whom beat her 46 to 41. Cruz would best Clinton 46 to 43. In this poll, Trump was the only major GOP contender Clinton would beat, by a margin of 46 to 43 percent (just barely outside the margin of error).

As long as she gets a free shot at Hillary she dont care about truth.

How different we are. It increases credibility in my eyes when people don't align their views based on the popularity of the view or the speaker.

Hawkeye is a ******* racist asshole, and since I don't believe that you are unaware of that, I guess it makes no difference to you.

Hawkeye is a ******* racist asshole,

snood wrote:

Hawkeye is a ******* racist asshole,

Takes one to know one, right?