If Kasich out-primaries Trump...

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If Ohio was one of the first states, or if Kasich is still legitimately seen as a contender by the time Ohio comes around, he'll win here by double-digits, maybe 65-35 or 60-40. He's still very popular among the state's Republicans, and independents in Ohio are used to voting in Republican primaries and supporting Republican politicians; he's even more popular with them.

Anyway, I can imagine Republican politicians underestimating the depth of antipathy to Trump in 2019-2020, thinking the popularity he has now is still around then if it isn't, and allowing Kasich to become the anti-Trump figure. And I can imagine Kasich winning some New England states where the primary voters are more moderate, and cauci where only the most motivated voters show up. (This is especially the case if there is a "more Trumpy" candidate running against Trump, which I think is very possible, if not outright likely). But in this scenario, like Ted Kennedy in 1980, he still ultimately falls short. It would take a truly exceptional figure, who is simultaneously a national hero and a master politician, to defeat an incumbent President in a primary, and John Kasich just isn't it. And I don't really think anyone in today's America is.

Wait till you see some polls for Ohio before you predict John Kasich running against Donald Trump. Republican incumbents are going to have tough times  in 2018 in swing states.

Kasich is term-limited, and wouldn't run again even if he weren't. Kasich (and, incidentally, also Justin Amash, which seems to get forgotten) is devoting his energy to a 2020 primary attempt.

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If the race is competitive at that point, Kasich wins Ohio. Full stop.

I don't realize why people are so confident someone else would get into the race. Sanders was a much lesser-known figure in 2015 than Kasich will be in 2019, and still emerged as the key challenger to Hillary. The way American politics works makes it difficult to enter a race once it is well underway, even if the opportunities only become clear much later on. How do you think Kerry Bentivolio got elected to the House? Or, hell, how did Bill Clinton get past numerous Democratic grandees, like Mario Cuomo and Al Gore, in 1992?

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And I can imagine Kasich winning some New England states where the primary voters are more moderate, and cauci where only the most motivated voters show up.

I don't think you understand what 'moderate' means, moderates are not moderates in your sense of understanding as in the 'reform conservative' theories you read about in the national review, they're moderates as in culturally liberal but prefer lower taxation.

This is true and is exactly what I meant

That's why Trump won pro-choice and socially liberal republicans in the primary,

HAHAHAHAHA

Can you be serious? Did Trump also win Mormons?

and the only other candidate to have contained a sizable number of that group was Kasich, which is also why a number of Kasich voters would've flipped to Trump without Kasich.

Moderates =/ Conservatives

Kasich did win a very sizable number of that group, but the vast majority of Republicans within that group were NeverTrump during the primaries, and while many of them came back towards the end, virtually all of the defectors to Hillary were from among their ranks.

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HAHAHAHAHA

Can you be serious? Did Trump also win Mormons?


Kasich did win a very sizable number of that group, but the vast majority of Republicans within that group were NeverTrump during the primaries, and while many of them came back towards the end, virtually all of the defectors to Hillary were from among their ranks.

It was polled:

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-prochoice-republicans-are-helping-donald-trump/

That's how Trump did, he won those voters.

The poll cited in the article did not test the presidential question at all. Particularly socially liberal areas, like Madison, Wisconsin, or Northern Virginia, had a strong tendency to reduce Trump to third place, frequently behind either Rubio and Kasich, or later Kasich and Cruz. Note that as the primary season went on Cruz gained strength in these areas out of ill feeling towards Trump. That's how anti-Trump they were.

Yes, just like how many Huntsman voters went for Obama, because many of them are not republicans and don't have loyalties to the party. Besides Kasich, independents went for Trump.

Loyalty to parties is a bad thing and should generally be discouraged.

And I can imagine Kasich winning some New England states where the primary voters are more moderate, and cauci where only the most motivated voters show up.

I don't think you understand what 'moderate' means, moderates are not moderates in your sense of understanding as in the 'reform conservative' theories you read about in the national review, they're moderates as in culturally liberal but prefer lower taxation.

This is true and is exactly what I meant

That's why Trump won pro-choice and socially liberal republicans in the primary,

HAHAHAHAHA

Can you be serious? Did Trump also win Mormons?

and the only other candidate to have contained a sizable number of that group was Kasich, which is also why a number of Kasich voters would've flipped to Trump without Kasich.

Moderates =/ Conservatives

Kasich did win a very sizable number of that group, but the vast majority of Republicans within that group were NeverTrump during the primaries, and while many of them came back towards the end, virtually all of the defectors to Hillary were from among their ranks.

-Trump won primary victories in all the most socially liberal states. I would not at all be surprised if he won pro-choice Republicans.

Trump tended to do very poorly in socially liberal areas within states, and even as much as he did win in some places (like Vermont, or Beaufort County, South Carolina), it tended to be due to the intense disunity of his opponents (winning 31% in Vermont, and 30% in Beaufort). It was mostly formerly Republican-voting social liberals who deserted him in the general election.

Incumbents arent invincible , Reagan despite treated as a joke and a right wing nutjob who would take up back to the days before FDR was extremely close to beating Ford in the primaries.  Now Kasich is no Reagan but Trump is no Ford either

This is true, but do note Reagan failed to beat Ford, and Ted Kennedy failed to beat Carter. Even Trump losing a state in the primary would be a 40-year milestone; I cannot imagine him actually being denied the nomination. No President who sought it has lost renomination in the primary era, and in the pre-primary era the last President to lose renomination was...Chester Arthur in 1884, who interestingly was broadly popular but was nevertheless denied renomination on account of his poor health (Arthur would go on to die in 1886). Incidentally, poor health and visible frailty could cost Trump support in the modern day, too, even if his approval rating is not abysmal.

What has happened -- multiple times since Arthur's day, though interestingly never since LBJ in 1968 -- is that the President could simply choose not to seek reelection. If Trump is unpopular, or in poor health, in 2020, and doesn't enjoy the job of President, he could always just not seek reelection. I kind of suspect Kasich would rather run against the incumbent Trump, though, to help his notoriety. He would probably get drowned out in a crowded field, like he mostly did in 2016.

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The poll cited in the article did not test the presidential question at all. Particularly socially liberal areas, like Madison, Wisconsin, or Northern Virginia, had a strong tendency to reduce Trump to third place, frequently behind either Rubio and Kasich, or later Kasich and Cruz. Note that as the primary season went on Cruz gained strength in these areas out of ill feeling towards Trump. That's how anti-Trump they were.


Trump tended to do very poorly in socially liberal areas within states, and even as much as he did win in some places (like Vermont, or Beaufort County, South Carolina), it tended to be due to the intense disunity of his opponents (winning 31% in Vermont, and 30% in Beaufort). It was mostly formerly Republican-voting social liberals who deserted him in the general election.

The polling was conducted at the national level.
Yes, NoVA, and WI, which I explained to you many times in how they were unique, and how they didn't match up to the rest of the primary map for various reasons. Every single political analyst from those regions will tell you why those areas are unique, right down to Scott Walker's campaign manager, who said Trump would've won if not for the peculiarities of the region.

I have pointed out many times that those areas are not unique and their voting patterns resemble other places. Even if you let those go, I cited other examples in my post.

Trump won evangelicals who didn't attend church:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/29/where-is-trumps-evangelical-base-not-in-church/

"Evangelicals who don't attend church" were a base group for Trump; they were among the people who backed him from the beginning through the end. Here's the thing: they're social conservatives. They're overwhelmingly pro-life, overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage, and so forth.

The only other candidate to have contained such a high concentration of liberal/moderate voters was Kasich, which is also why the polls showed a sizable number of Kasich voters going to Trump.

After Rubio dropped out, only Kasich had a high concentration of liberal/moderate voters. Virtually none of them polls showed any sizable number of Kasich voters going to Trump; these were NeverTrump people who happened to also find Cruz very distasteful. Trump could not have won them under any circumstance.

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The poll cited in the article did not test the presidential question at all. Particularly socially liberal areas, like Madison, Wisconsin, or Northern Virginia, had a strong tendency to reduce Trump to third place, frequently behind either Rubio and Kasich, or later Kasich and Cruz. Note that as the primary season went on Cruz gained strength in these areas out of ill feeling towards Trump. That's how anti-Trump they were.


Trump tended to do very poorly in socially liberal areas within states, and even as much as he did win in some places (like Vermont, or Beaufort County, South Carolina), it tended to be due to the intense disunity of his opponents (winning 31% in Vermont, and 30% in Beaufort). It was mostly formerly Republican-voting social liberals who deserted him in the general election.

The polling was conducted at the national level.
Yes, NoVA, and WI, which I explained to you many times in how they were unique, and how they didn't match up to the rest of the primary map for various reasons. Every single political analyst from those regions will tell you why those areas are unique, right down to Scott Walker's campaign manager, who said Trump would've won if not for the peculiarities of the region.

I have pointed out many times that those areas are not unique and their voting patterns resemble other places. Even if you let those go, I cited other examples in my post.

Trump won evangelicals who didn't attend church:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/29/where-is-trumps-evangelical-base-not-in-church/

"Evangelicals who don't attend church" were a base group for Trump; they were among the people who backed him from the beginning through the end. Here's the thing: they're social conservatives. They're overwhelmingly pro-life, overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage, and so forth.

The only other candidate to have contained such a high concentration of liberal/moderate voters was Kasich, which is also why the polls showed a sizable number of Kasich voters going to Trump.

After Rubio dropped out, only Kasich had a high concentration of liberal/moderate voters. Virtually none of them polls showed any sizable number of Kasich voters going to Trump; these were NeverTrump people who happened to also find Cruz very distasteful. Trump could not have won them under any circumstance.

Again, as I explained to you, in normal regions like Las Vegas and Boston, and Detroit, Trump won easily.

Trump did well in Las Vegas because of entertainment unions that mobilized to back him in the caucus; this was present literally nowhere else (and had not been a factor in previous Republican cauci in Nevada), and indeed is a good example of a political microclimate. Boston was a good area for Trump because of the high number of WWC Trump supporters. Trump did not actually do all that well in Detroit -- he won the city 34-25; only a few points better than his 53-28 crushing in Milwaukee. Trump won Detroit because of vote splitting. As for the area south of Detroit (the Downriver), Trump won there by a lot, frequently crossing 50%. But it was for the same reason as Boston.

Trump did poorly specifically in the WoW region for the reasons outlined by many political analysts due to peculiarities for that region. Same with NoVa.

Trump did poorly in WoW and NoVa for the same reason he did poorly in wealthy suburbs around the country. NoVa was special in some ways because of its unusual social liberalism and because there was a population of Democrats crossing over to oppose Trump there, which meant he did far worse there than "expected". The WoW counties were totally in line with Columbus, western Michigan, northern Atlanta, and plenty of other suburbs that roundly rejected Trump.

No, those nevertrump voters who were with rubio, were mainly conservatives, that's why they went to cruz.

No, many of them were actually social liberals; look at the results in NoVa, for example, or exit polls from that time period. They went to Cruz because for many social liberals, defeating Trump was the highest priority, and they didn't care about what vehicle was used to do it.

Rubio was always a poor fit for the Northeast precisely due to his social conservatism, which is exactly why he kept finishing distant thirds behind Kasich and Trump there.

Huh? Rubio and Kasich basically tied in Massachusetts, while Rubio wrote off Vermont to Kasich and only ran 5 points behind Kasich in NH, a state Kasich had targeted for months where Rubio had not campaigned much that voted during a trough in Rubio polling.

That's not what the statistics show, Trump won those polled as socially liberal republicans, with Kasich having the only other sizable number of voters in those categories.

The results of the elections contradict this.

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The results of the elections contradict this.

Your own numbers are off, Trump won 40% in Detroit.

Trump won 41% in Wayne County. Trump won 34% in the City of Detroit. If you go to US Election Atlas's map of Michigan's 2016 Republican primary, and click on any county, you will be able to see the municipal results, free of charge.

Look at you making excuses for LV, when there is no evidence that LV was unique, and no political analysis has been developed to suggest that it was.

Trump is a bigger employer in LV than in any other major metropolitan area in the United States. If you don't think this made a difference, you're being ridiculous.

Trump did in line with LV as he did normally in Boston and Detroit, all in the 40s range.

Nope. Trump did better in LV than in Boston, where he did better than Detroit. His typical performance, incidentally, was between Detroit and Boston. Only LV is "in the 40s range" (49 in Cook County); Trump was at 41 in Boston and at 34 in Detroit. All three are totally different.

He got killed in WoW and NoVA due to the unique political circumstances there.

WoW was a typical suburban area for Trump; my own hometown of Columbus voted very similarly. NoVa was somewhat worse for him than a typical suburb because of crossover Democratic votes which weren't anticipated in polling; otherwise, it would've looked similar to WoW and Columbus.

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The results of the elections contradict this.

Your own numbers are off, Trump won 40% in Detroit.

Trump won 41% in Wayne County. Trump won 34% in the City of Detroit. If you go to US Election Atlas's map of Michigan's 2016 Republican primary, and click on any county, you will be able to see the municipal results, free of charge.

Look at you making excuses for LV, when there is no evidence that LV was unique, and no political analysis has been developed to suggest that it was.

Trump is a bigger employer in LV than in any other major metropolitan area in the United States. If you don't think this made a difference, you're being ridiculous.

Trump did in line with LV as he did normally in Boston and Detroit, all in the 40s range.

Nope. Trump did better in LV than in Boston, where he did better than Detroit. His typical performance, incidentally, was between Detroit and Boston. Only LV is "in the 40s range" (49 in Cook County); Trump was at 41 in Boston and at 34 in Detroit. All three are totally different.

He got killed in WoW and NoVA due to the unique political circumstances there.

WoW was a typical suburban area for Trump; my own hometown of Columbus voted very similarly. NoVa was somewhat worse for him than a typical suburb because of crossover Democratic votes which weren't anticipated in polling; otherwise, it would've looked similar to WoW and Columbus.

So, your assigning LV due to Trump's employment as evidence of the region being biased for Trump? NoVA being DC-establishment central and WoW being a region that enthusiastically singularly opposed Trump in the primary from day 1 to the extent that local Wisconsin media constantly wrote about it, has meanwhile, nothing to do with peculiar regional bias against Trump?

No, I don't think so. Milwaukee had about the same result as Columbus. Wisconsin as a whole had literally the same Trump percentage as Michigan and Ohio.

Detroit alone had a population of 4,800 voters, wow, what a sample size.

You brought up the City of Detroit. The metropolitan area as a whole had Trump roughly in the high 30s (maybe slightly better than his national average, but basically typical for a Midwestern metro), though it depends on how you define it. If you exclude Washtenaw and include St. Clair, Trump obviously does better.

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Trump getting 24% in the Milwaukee metro was not typical, do you at least admit that?

I admit that this was worse than the typical Midwestern metro area for Trump. I don't admit that it was unique, since where I live (Columbus), the result was the same. However, Wisconsin is more rural (and rural areas were frequently somewhat more pro-Trump, particularly in the north) than its neighbors, so on the whole Wisconsin's statewide result was basically typical for a Midwestern state. That is the key data point: 36%. Trump's result in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

I look at the demographic similarities between the Kasich coalition in Ohio and the Cruz coalition in Wisconsin, and the demographic similarities of Trump coalitions across the Midwest, excluding Indiana (in WI/IL/MI/OH), and I come to the conclusion that had there been a single unified Trump-opposition candidate (which I speculated Rubio was on track to becoming before Christie defeated him in a NH debate, and would've become had he avoided his defeat in that debate, or had CNN not made the decision to invite Christie even though he didn't qualify), that person would've swept the Midwest, and then probably the nomination.

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Trump getting 24% in the Milwaukee metro was not typical, do you at least admit that?

I admit that this was worse than the typical Midwestern metro area for Trump. I don't admit that it was unique, since where I live (Columbus), the result was the same. However, Wisconsin is more rural (and rural areas were frequently somewhat more pro-Trump, particularly in the north) than its neighbors, so on the whole Wisconsin's statewide result was basically typical for a Midwestern state. That is the key data point: 36%. Trump's result in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

I look at the demographic similarities between the Kasich coalition in Ohio and the Cruz coalition in Wisconsin, and the demographic similarities of Trump coalitions across the Midwest, excluding Indiana (in WI/IL/MI/OH), and I come to the conclusion that had there been a single unified Trump-opposition candidate (which I speculated Rubio was on track to becoming before Christie defeated him in a NH debate, and would've become had he avoided his defeat in that debate, or had CNN not made the decision to invite Christie even though he didn't qualify), that person would've swept the Midwest, and then probably the nomination.

That's because OH was a home state of Kasich, and WoW had a unique dynamic as NoVA.

It's not. Polling in OH in early March had Trump leading in the mid-30s, Kasich just below him, and Cruz in the 20s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Republican_primary,_2016

Kasich was able to consolidate all of the anti-Trump vote except the hardcore Cruz base. Columbus, which like Milwaukee has a large section of the population in fairly well-off and overwhelmingly white suburbs, would've voted similarly to Milwaukee regardless of whether Kasich had ran or not.

If Trump had performed as well in the Milwuakee metro as he did in other states, the race would've looked dramatically different. It would've been an ultra-tight race between Trump and Cruz.

It would've been a high single-digit victory for Cruz, rather than the double-digit landslide he actually won by. Because of Wisconsin's delegate allocation by congressional district, it wouldn't have actually changed a thing. No congressional districts by Milwaukee were remotely close enough to be flipped.

Again, as I showed you, Trump did as well in IL/MO (you constantly leave out MO for some reason) as he did in NC, it was in line with Trump's overall performance.

I leave out NC because it is Southern, and Trump was stronger in Southern rural areas than (most) Midwestern ones; southeastern MO is also broadly Southern. While a unified anti-Trump figure could indeed have won both states, they aren't part of my Midwest analysis. Due to some unique aspects of MO, incidentally, I suspect it was only really winnable for Cruz, and a different anti-Trump candidate, like Rubio, would've actually lost the state. But that goes into another thing entirely.

Christie did qualify for the debate just fine.

The organizers of the debate changed the rules at the last second to include Christie, because he was polling well in New Hampshire: they made it either top six in NH or top six nationally. It had previously been top six nationally; this would've invited Bush, Carson, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump. They couldn't have known what a fateful decision that was -- it ended up giving the Trump the nomination (and then the presidency).

It is a fallacy, because as I've showed you in the preference surveys, some Kasich voters would've gone to Trump,

Polling and election results showed that the number of Kasich voters who would've gone to Trump was very negligible. Most who supported Kasich after the Ides of March had no second preference, and wouldn't've voted if Kasich wasn't a candidate.

and Rubio -> Cruz actually had higher second choice polling, than the reverse, where proportionally a higher percentage of Cruz voters had Trump as a second choice.

It's true enough that there were lots of voters whose preferences went 1) Cruz, 2) Trump, 3) Rubio -- by no means would Rubio have gotten all of Cruz's supporters had Cruz been pushed out -- but evidence from states where the race was mostly Trump against Rubio, or mostly Trump against Kasich (who had positions mostly similar to Rubio's, and in many of the early states was mostly fighting Rubio for supporters), suggests more of Cruz's voters were 1) Cruz, 2) Rubio, 3) Trump. This rarely came into play, since Cruz established himself ahead of Rubio fairly early.

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Uti2, we've been rehashing the same argument over and over again since before the general election. Can we agree to a truce, not responding to each other's posts? I don't think either of us is going to convince the other soon. We can look back after the next competitive Republican primary; there's a good chance that it'll shed some light on which of us was right.

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Uti2, we've been rehashing the same argument over and over again since before the general election. Can we agree to a truce, not responding to each other's posts? I don't think either of us is going to convince the other soon. We can look back after the next competitive Republican primary; there's a good chance that it'll shed some light on which of us was right.

Just answer my point on Christie, I gave you a new argument to consider regarding Iowa.

Ugh, fine.

. This rarely came into play, since Cruz established himself ahead of Rubio fairly early.

So MO has southern influences, yet you're not going to admit that OH and MI are not Northeastern influenced? This is part of your fallacious line of reasoning. Part of OH is located in Appalachia, which was Trump's strongest region.

Sure, but southeastern Missouri is about 1/8 of the state while the Appalachian bit of Ohio is 1/16. The rest of Ohio is too populous for the Appalachian bit to make a difference in any but the closest of elections.

Detroit is culturally closer to Philadelphia than it is to Milwaukee.

I disagree, but this is a qualitative thing in any case.

Yeah, again Kasich winning his home state. Trump was leading Cruz in TX until late Jan too. What happened in WI and NoVA was a set of events that wasn't replicated anywhere else, other than Utah.

Sure, but my point is that in a smaller field it was possible to replicate. Cruz surged in WI not because of any inherent differences in that state, but simply because the field was finally down to 3 candidates. It was down to 3 in OH, too, where Rubio effectively dropped out. Where it was 4, like in IL and MI (and, yes, MO & NC, though Trump had greater support there generally), Trump was capable of pulling out victories.

Again, I showed you the data before with the preferences

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/who-gains-the-most-when-the-gop-field-shrinks

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/the-ceiling-buster/470919/

If you want to make this all about debates, if Trump had attended the IA debate, and had won IA, where would rubio have been in that scenario?

I don't think Trump or Cruz winning Iowa made a very big difference; Iowa was a proportional state where even Huckabee won a delegate. You are probably correct, on the other hand, that Trump would've won Iowa had he attended the pre-Iowa debate; I don't see it making a big difference on the race, though. Trump ends up 1-2 delegates stronger.

All I see is you making emotionally tinged posts about the 'orange man',

Where have I used that phrase once?

if the actual preference data demonstrated what you've suggested, then there wouldn't be any issues here, but the fact is that the data doesn't.

I'm pointing to the results of the elections and parallels between states. You're pointing to surveys which frequently didn't even ask the horse-race question. There's a difference.

And the same data also shows Trump constantly winning self-identified moderates. Rubio/Cruz mainly split the conservative vote, with rubio getting somewhat conservative (reform conservatives), and Cruz getting the religious conservative vote. The liberal/moderate vote went to Trump and Kasich.

Here we go again...

Speculating about Christie is like speculating about Dean and Gephardt, fact is that Christie always did make the cut. ABC defined the criteria on Jan 27 for who would be allowed in the NH debate (Christie always qualified under that criteria), the Fox debate was on Jan 28. Going by your logic, let's say Christie would be excluded from the NH debate, and he knew he would be excluded in advance if he knew the criteria was going to be more restrictive, and he had made the same attack in NH he did, one debate earlier in IA, where would rubio have been in that scenario?

Christie knew at that debate that he was unlikely to make the next one. He tried to attack Rubio, if you rewatch the debate, and fell flat on his face. What happened in the NH debate was a confluence of factors that have never been replicated at any other debate either Rubio or Christie participated in. That doesn't excuse Rubio's horrible performance, but it gives it some context.

Maybe Cruz gets 35% in IA that scenario, gets anointed as the nevertrump candidate, takes 18% in NH, and beats Trump in a one-on-one after that, etc.

If Cruz was actually capable of doing well in New Hampshire, pushing candidates out, then yes, he could've won. As such, Cruz would've needed a different schedule or a different lineup of candidates to win outright, though I maintain that had he made better decisions, especially at the end of April, it was still possible for Cruz to send the race to the convention.

There are tons of 'what-if' arguments to be made. Cruz actually did poll best early on as a one on one candidate vs. Trump, for what it's worth.

True, but Cruz's position in the party would've (did! Kasich stayed in until May) made it difficult for him to clear the field.

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If Ohio was one of the first states, or if Kasich is still legitimately seen as a contender by the time Ohio comes around, he'll win here by double-digits, maybe 65-35 or 60-40. He's still very popular among the state's Republicans, and independents in Ohio are used to voting in Republican primaries and supporting Republican politicians; he's even more popular with them.

Anyway, I can imagine Republican politicians underestimating the depth of antipathy to Trump in 2019-2020, thinking the popularity he has now is still around then if it isn't, and allowing Kasich to become the anti-Trump figure. And I can imagine Kasich winning some New England states where the primary voters are more moderate, and cauci where only the most motivated voters show up. (This is especially the case if there is a "more Trumpy" candidate running against Trump, which I think is very possible, if not outright likely). But in this scenario, like Ted Kennedy in 1980, he still ultimately falls short. It would take a truly exceptional figure, who is simultaneously a national hero and a master politician, to defeat an incumbent President in a primary, and John Kasich just isn't it. And I don't really think anyone in today's America is.

Wait till you see some polls for Ohio before you predict John Kasich running against Donald Trump. Republican incumbents are going to have tough times  in 2018 in swing states.

Kasich is term-limited, and wouldn't run again even if he weren't. Kasich (and, incidentally, also Justin Amash, which seems to get forgotten) is devoting his energy to a 2020 primary attempt.

I can't disagree more with Kasich's popularity. Based on that statement I guarantee you live in Columbus.

Well, I do

Kasich is poison to a lot of republicans in Ohio, his shenanigans at the RNC and McCain vote angered the base. Look at the ORP leadership race, half the GOP county chairs specifically went against Kasich. Look at the fighting in the legislature over Kasich's plans. He couldn't win a GOP primary head to head against trump (or I'd be mandel)

Recent polls in Ohio generally show Kasich with positive net approval among Republicans and very positive net approval among independents, and you and I both know that a very large number of independents vote in Republican primaries in Ohio.

We also know that Borges horribly mismanaged the Ohio GOP's finances, and just for that would've been defeated overwhelmingly in any other state; Timken's associations with Trumpism were the only reason it was even particularly close.

Uti2, we've been rehashing the same argument over and over again since before the general election. Can we agree to a truce, not responding to each other's posts? I don't think either of us is going to convince the other soon. We can look back after the next competitive Republican primary; there's a good chance that it'll shed some light on which of us was right.

By the way, I don't think there will be another election like this. This was an election similar to Goldwater's nomination in 1964. In 1964 you had a goldwater's movement which was more or less a marginal force until Ford lost the general election in 1976. The idea was that goldwater's wing was unelectable, once they realize it was electable, opposition to it dissipated, and successors to reagan/goldwater in general were deemed as less polarizing from then on. Any potential successors to Trump will also be toned down.

This is a difficult thing to say, since while the net swing in the general election from 2012 was not large, the swing among different groups was; perhaps 1/6 (this is a vague, gut-feeling estimate; you can quibble up or down) of both parties were exchanged. So it's difficult to say what the primary electorates will look like at the next open election. But it should be noted that voters under-45 were staunchly opposed to the two most recent Republican nominees (Romney and Trump), so I don't think either of those models is going to have a lot of strength moving forward.

It should also be kept in mind that, regardless of their ideological orientations, there will be occasional "celebrity candidates" able to appeal far beyond their natural base using their celebrity. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose political views are almost diametrically opposite Trump's, had a similar vastly inflated support. And I think, as we move forward into the Internet age, such celebrity candidates will become much more, not less, common. Mark Cuban running for the 2020 Democratic nomination would be an even greater break from history than Donald Trump running for the 2016 Republicans'.

Of course, none of this changes the actual data showing Trump winning self-identified moderates poll and exit poll after another (along with socially liberal republicans), the second choice preference data regarding Kasich, and Trump's underwater favorability uniquely in WI and of course NoVA v. the national GOP primary (something that was constantly pointed out in local WI media from day 1).

You're trying to retrofit the idea that all the numbers were stuck in a single range, while ignoring what the underlying trends demonstrated and leaving out MO (due to southern influences), but ignoring the Northeastern and Appalachian influences in MI and OH. Trump's numbers in the midwest overall did move with momentum that's why he received 39/40% in IL/MO, in line with 40% in NC.

Even 538 conducted another study on this subject which confirms what I'm saying, Trump won socially liberal republicans:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-trump-supporters-were-doing-before-trump/

Once again, I'm pointing at the results, and you're pointing at studies with high margins of error and selectively choosing what exit polls to look at. But, again, this is a debate that is going nowhere. We can't re-hold the 2016 primaries under different circumstances to test our theories.

*By the way, Carson was polling 2% within the margin of error of 0 in NH, that's why he was a non-entity there v. Christie, who was genuinely in 6th.

Right, but they originally planned to invite the top six national candidates, before changing the rules to allow in Christie.

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This is a difficult thing to say, since while the net swing in the general election from 2012 was not large, the swing among different groups was; perhaps 1/6 (this is a vague, gut-feeling estimate; you can quibble up or down) of both parties were exchanged. So it's difficult to say what the primary electorates will look like at the next open election. But it should be noted that voters under-45 were staunchly opposed to the two most recent Republican nominees (Romney and Trump), so I don't think either of those models is going to have a lot of strength moving forward.

It should also be kept in mind that, regardless of their ideological orientations, there will be occasional "celebrity candidates" able to appeal far beyond their natural base using their celebrity. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose political views are almost diametrically opposite Trump's, had a similar vastly inflated support. And I think, as we move forward into the Internet age, such celebrity candidates will become much more, not less, common. Mark Cuban running for the 2020 Democratic nomination would be an even greater break from history than Donald Trump running for the 2016 Republicans'.


Once again, I'm pointing at the results, and you're pointing at studies with high margins of error and selectively choosing what exit polls to look at. But, again, this is a debate that is going nowhere. We can't re-hold the 2016 primaries under different circumstances to test our theories.



Right, but they originally planned to invite the top six national candidates, before changing the rules to allow in Christie.

Goldwater was strongly opposed in the 64' primary and only was able to avoid the contested contention due to news of Rockefeller's divorce coming out at a bad time for him, which allowed him to barely win California and avoid a brokered convention. Goldwater was supported by the youth, you're suggesting? Obviously he wasn't.

Why wouldn't he have been? Young Americans voted pretty Republican in general elections in the 1980s. I've only really looked at exit polls from primaries in 2008/2012/2016. It's clear in 2012 that the largest faction among voters under 45 was Paulist libertarianism, followed by socially conservative "Tea Party"-ism (people who switched seamlessly from Gingrich to Santorum), followed by the older establishmentarian Republicanism (Romney supporters). This pattern was more or less the same in every state, and tended to vary based on how strong individual states were for those three worldviews.

2016 was less stagnant; younger voters swung wildly from one anti-Trump candidate to another, breaking massively for Rubio in Virginia, Kasich in Ohio, and Cruz in Texas. This occurred without regard for ideology. In many states without a clear anti-Trump, they were divided. Regionalism played a big aspect; in the Mountain West states, the generational gap was highest (in Nevada, Trump won the caucus by 22 even as Rubio won voters under 35 by 6 points), while it wasn't as severe in the South and most of the Midwest, barely existed at all in Upper Midwest states (especially WI saw younger voters basically reflect the overall result), and was reversed in a few New England states (most notably, New Hampshire saw the greatest Trump overperformance among young voters; the only other states where he was actually stronger were VT and RI).

General election young voters obviously were quite left-wing -- and this has major repercussions for the Republican Party not far down the road -- but young voters who voted in the Republican primary clearly weren't. The question is whether these people, with their obvious distaste for Trumpism, will continue voting in Republican primaries at all, or whether they might be tempered, or even replaced, by a more Trumpy influx.

When exit polls and primary polling data from pretty much every state shows Trump winning moderates it's the actual data. What you're trying to do is cherrypick outlier states like WI,

WI wasn't an outlier state.

where Trump never did as poorly in comparative Boston, Las Vegas, Chicago or Detroit.

Those aren't all the same. Las Vegas > Boston > Chicago > Detroit. Those didn't all magically have the same result.

Meanwhile you ignore the Northeastern + Appalachian influences in MI and OH and write MO off as southern influenced, that's the definition of cherrypicking.

I'm not writing MO off (indeed, it can fit pretty well into my paradigm), simply saying that it's logical for Trump to have done slightly better in MO than in the rest of the Midwest. Appalachian influence in OH is negligible; it's 1/16 of the state that turns out at a lesser rate than other parts. Saying OH or MI have "Northeastern influence" might have been true in the 19th century, but it isn't today.

Except the first time the NH debate criteria was announced for the abc debate was on Jan 27, and abc already had it at top 6 in NH, it was always top 6 in NH, not top 6 nationally, even the Fox debate on Jan 28 had it at top 6 in NH + top 6 in IA.

On a day when I'm free, I'll go back and find the relevant thread.

By the way, you didn't address my point, in the hypothetical universe, where the debate criteria was different and it was only top 5, so then Christie delivers his attack in IA instead.

Well, two things could've happened. Either the attack would've been successful and things progress much as they did in real life, or the attack could've been unsuccessful and then Rubio would probably have knocked Kasich/Bush out in NH and then proceeded to consolidate the anti-Trump vote behind a single candidate. This would not have guaranteed him the nomination, but it would've made him the favorite, and would've allowed him to comfortably win most of the Midwest by double digits. As you pointed out elsewhere, Rubio might still have lost his home state, which was one of the most natural states for Trump in the country.

You change many different variables, you could get Cruz winning at 35% in IA, then 18% as the 'nevertrump' candidate in NH, and then the following being a one-on-one in Trump v. Cruz, etc. There are many ways you can play that game.

This is true.

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WI wasn't an outlier state.

where Trump never did as poorly in comparative Boston, Las Vegas, Chicago or Detroit.

Those aren't all the same. Las Vegas > Boston > Chicago > Detroit. Those didn't all magically have the same result.

Meanwhile you ignore the Northeastern + Appalachian influences in MI and OH and write MO off as southern influenced, that's the definition of cherrypicking.

I'm not writing MO off (indeed, it can fit pretty well into my paradigm), simply saying that it's logical for Trump to have done slightly better in MO than in the rest of the Midwest. Appalachian influence in OH is negligible; it's 1/16 of the state that turns out at a lesser rate than other parts. Saying OH or MI have "Northeastern influence" might have been true in the 19th century, but it isn't today.

Except the first time the NH debate criteria was announced for the abc debate was on Jan 27, and abc already had it at top 6 in NH, it was always top 6 in NH, not top 6 nationally, even the Fox debate on Jan 28 had it at top 6 in NH + top 6 in IA.

On a day when I'm free, I'll go back and find the relevant thread.

By the way, you didn't address my point, in the hypothetical universe, where the debate criteria was different and it was only top 5, so then Christie delivers his attack in IA instead.

Well, two things could've happened. Either the attack would've been successful and things progress much as they did in real life, or the attack could've been unsuccessful and then Rubio would probably have knocked Kasich/Bush out in NH and then proceeded to consolidate the anti-Trump vote behind a single candidate. This would not have guaranteed him the nomination, but it would've made him the favorite, and would've allowed him to comfortably win most of the Midwest by double digits. As you pointed out elsewhere, Rubio might still have lost his home state, which was one of the most natural states for Trump in the country.

You change many different variables, you could get Cruz winning at 35% in IA, then 18% as the 'nevertrump' candidate in NH, and then the following being a one-on-one in Trump v. Cruz, etc. There are many ways you can play that game.

This is true.

Goldwater lost massively in the general election to LBJ, it's clear that the youth didn't vote for him.

This isn't necessarily clear in the primaries, which Goldwater won. It's not like the youth vote in the primaries necessarily reflects the general election (this logic suggests neither Trump nor Clinton could win, since the youth in both parties were so against them).

If it wasn't an outlier why did the WI media constantly call it an outlier from day 1? They noticed a trend of peculiar anti-Trump sentiment and reported on it extensively,

They didn't, because this never happened, because Wisconsin was a totally typical primary. Polls in March, when Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz were all still running, had Trump winning Wisconsin, just like Michigan. Once the race narrowed to a three-man race, Trump lost. Flip Wisconsin and Michigan's spots on the calendar, and you can flip the results in both states.

even comparing to the rest of the midwest, this was back in 2015.

Same way WI and the other midwestern states aren't all the same going by that logic.

If OH and MI have negligible Northeastern influence, then so does MO with regards to southern influence,

Uh, no. MO-8, the southeastern fourth of the state (which is only about 1/8 of the population) is completely culturally Southern. Whereas even western Pennsylvania, and western New York, are much more Appalachian than they are Northeastern. Pittsburgh, Erie, and Buffalo are not Northeastern cities, never even mind Cleveland or Detroit.

and Trump did in line performance there with regards to NC and IL on the national level.

IL was a little better than typical for a Midwestern state for him; you can ascribe this to southern influence in the state or to a slight depression in turnout among anti-Trump voters, since it was clear Trump wouldn't be defeated in the state; neither is a strong enough explanation on their own, but put together the Illinois result makes sense.

NC followed the same patterns seen in VA, SC, and GA, with most Southern urban areas (excluding downmarket coastal resorts or military bases, like Myrtle Beach and Norfolk, which were very strongly pro-Trump) being very strongly anti-Trump while rural areas were pretty strongly for him, excluding some especially socially conservative areas (like Upstate South Carolina) where Cruz was strong. Trump could've defeated a unified anti-Trump candidate in most of the interior South states (MS, AL, TN; these states have lots of voters who would've flipped Cruz-->Trump-->Rubio/Kasich), along with FL due to the unique demographics of South Florida (though FL would've been close), but would've lost VA/NC/SC/GA without much issue. Indeed, NC and GA had a result that was virtually the same. Trump was weaker in SC than he should've been, still Bush was still in the race (and, indeed, many voters did switch Bush-->Trump), but a four-man Rubio/Trump/Cruz/Carson race in SC would've still ended in a single-digit Rubio victory.

The debate criteria was first announced on Jan 27, it was always top six in NH, never changed.
The whole reason Trump underperformed in IA was due to him not attending the debate, had he attended, and had he won? That again is another scenario, so that caucus performance was purely with regards to the debate, if rubio had bombed that debate, those late deciders would've gone to Cruz if they were looking for the anti-trump candidate. And if course of rubio had bombed the IA debate, while Trump attended, that also would've set off a different scenario.

 Again, that's all pure speculation, if you look at the actual second choice preference data, it doesn't suggest what you're saying, the only thing you constantly go back to is WI, but WI was always an inherently anti-Trump state which the WI media constantly referenced like no other state media has ever done.

I go back to WI and OH. These are our examples of Trump against a unified anti-Trump candidate in the Midwest. I note that the two candidates in question were very different but their patterns of support were very similar. I note further that Trump's support had basically the same demographics in all Midwestern primaries held prior to the late April surge, with his opponents' fragmented, and I conclude that a single opponent could've built the same coalitions that existed in WI and OH in any other Midwestern state. I then suggest the person with the most logical path to becoming a sole anti-Trump, in late January, was Rubio. Your only reaction to this seems to be insisting that WI and OH just both happen to be identical special outliers for no particular reason.

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If the youth is more liberal as you suggest, then Nelson Rockefeller would've won it.

The youth is not consistently more liberal. It happens to be more liberal right now; in the 1980s young people voted consistently Republican.

What is particularly interesting right now is that young people, both liberal and conservative, are very alienated from both modern liberalism and modern conservatism. This is something both parties are going to have to come to terms with very soon.

And Appalachia was also a stronghold for Trump anyway in addition to the NE.

This is true.

Culture-wise Detroit is closer to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia of course, than it is to Milwaukee.

This is not. Great Lakes cities have similar accents, economies, histories, and so forth. Detroit is much more similar to Milwaukee than it is to Pittsburgh (which is Appalachian) or Philadelphia (which is Northeastern).

Except exit poll data constantly showed Trump winning moderates, which is what he did, the only other candidate of moderates was Kasich, which is why the preference polls showing many of those voters going to Trump. Even if you combined the actual results of Rubio + Kasich in SC, according to your theory Trump still wins the primary, as you say, Jeb voters that were left simply didn't like Rubio.

Not the case. Virtually all of Kasich's voters were shown in multiple polls and in many states to have Rubio as their second choice. This was the case for many of Bush's voters as well, even though some indeed preferred Trump. With the only candidates being Rubio, Trump, Cruz, and Carson, Rubio would've scored in the low 40s, Trump in the high 30s, Cruz in the high teens (losing a few points of NeverTrumpers who voted for Cruz out of the belief that he was a more viable opponent than Rubio; my only acquaintance in SC voted for Cruz out of this logic, for instance), and Carson exactly where he was. Georgia and North Carolina would've seen similar results (Georgia would've been closer).

OH which is a home state example, again, why would those other states have mounted a unified anti-trump candidate? On what basis? What infrastructure could possibly cause that? WI, had the local media, and OH had Kasich.

Kasich became the unified candidate in OH because of his home-state advantage, but as we've seen in other states (like FL), home-state advantage is not always enough. If there was a unified national anti-Trump candidate -- and when Wisconsin voted Cruz could be said to fill that role -- that person could've won OH/WI-esque victories in every Midwestern state. If the local media in Wisconsin was so anti-Trump, why was his result there the same as in every other Midwestern state? Surely he should've been weakened by it.

No, OH was Kasich's home state advantage, and I already put that comparison with TX and Cruz.

Kasich becoming the unified opposition candidate in OH was due to home-state advantage. Same with TX and Cruz (though, as OK/AR shows, Cruz was also just a good fit for the region's preferences generally). But the ability of the unified opposition candidate to win states like OH had nothing to do with Kasich.

WI was definitely a unique state, the fact that Trump won 39% in IL, 40% in NC and MO, shows that Trump basically did the same, the midwest went with Trump momentum.

WI wasn't unique because the result there was the same as everywhere else in the Midwest!

By the way, you hypocritically label Las Vegas and NV as unique.

Las Vegas had a result that was vastly different from the rest of the Southwest and West generally. It actually is unique, and stands out on a map. There's no hypocrisy -- some areas really are unique. Others aren't. The disagreement is on which areas were unusual, not whether unusual areas exist.