This is what 538 said about Ted Cruz a year ago

[ElectionsGuy]

"First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. Second, Cruz has an electability problem".

All credibility is lost.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

[Xing]

The electability problem is still there.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

Cruz is a liberal RINO. If he loses, it will be because he wasn't conservative enough.

If anyone seriously says that after watching him lose the general I will immediately lose any and all respect I have for them. 

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

TRUMP came in and completed f[inks] up all logic and just threw it out the window.

[Maxwell]

They were right about both but neither mattered - Cruz managed to build a massive fundraising apparatus without them and was crafty enough to out-think and out-last all of his other non-Trump competitors. I hate Cruz but I think he ran a very very strong campaign, and that was hard to anticipate.

[Volrath50]

"First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. Second, Cruz has an electability problem".

All credibility is lost.

I wouldn't say that. Cruz still has a major electability problem - I think he would enter the general as a major underdog to Hillary. He now only has the support of party bigwigs because everyone else failed so badly. So I think both of those are true.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

"First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. Second, Cruz has an electability problem".

All credibility is lost.

To be fair... a year ago that was true. Even now, establishment support is hesitant at best and he still has a massive electability problem.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Yeah, I think he's still a Goldwater conservative who would have a LOT of problems in the general.

That said, he's VERY canny.

I wouldn't be surprised (well, other than my surprise at him being the nominee) if he pivoted from his evangelical focused conservatism atm to focusing more on Ex-Im Bank, criticizing 'halfhearted' interventions in Libya, Syria etc./tying Clinton to the 'Obama Foreign Policy Disaster,' and hitting Clinton on trade pretty hard.

He'd be able to hold the Romney Coalition together (lol old white dudes, most of whom are GOP), maybe build up with anti-establishment independents.

Expect unaffiliated groups to hit both Sec Clinton and Pres Clinton HARD on character.

He could probably make it close, at least.

[Young Conservative]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

is this a joke

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

is this a joke

No, and if you don't see this as a real possibility, you're kidding yourself.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

is this a joke

No, and if you don't see this as a real possibility, you're kidding yourself.

I don't think the worry is the core of the Obama Coalition this election. I think the worrisome folks for Dems are the people who've never voted before,  came to the election for Sanders and Trump, and (in this scenario) were left at the altar.

[i4indyguy]

Neither of those 2 initial assertions has been proven false thooo..

Cruz did not (and does not) have any establishment support absent ANY other options.  The only reason he is now getting establishment endorsements is due to an absence of options.

Cruz does still have an electability problem.  Just because he could face a greatly controversial Sec. Clinton (and polls reasonably) doesn't negate his lack of crossover appeal.

[TJ in Oregon]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

Cruz is a liberal RINO. If he loses, it will be because he wasn't conservative enough.

If anyone seriously says that after watching him lose the general I will immediately lose any and all respect I have for them. 

Well Wulfric, somehow I doubt the sort of people who would say that are the sort of people you'd have respect for in the first place.

[Bull Moose Base]

There was a thread about this 538 assessment a year ago and thank you for another chance to show I got it right! Too often people argue about what will happen only for events to prove one of them right (often me) but the argument is forgotten. Here's me on who is stronger between Cruz and Rubio (and as a bonus, me dismissing Paul as way weaker than Cruz.)

Paul can become serious, Cruz cannot.

I think it's the opposite. Paul has many problematic deviations from GOP orthodoxy. Cruz doesn't.

As for the 538 piece, it's pretty remarkable to have a Rubio piece and not mention immigration. Cruz's consistent opposition to amnesty gives him something to offer GOP primary voters that the two frontrunners don't. Also, Gingrich doesn't strike me as a relevant precedent for how Cruz would be stopped since Gingrich's electability or lack thereof had little to do with his demise.

Now, in another sense, I was very wrong because Trump has had even more deviations than Paul. But Paul wasn't all conservative id the way Trump is and a large part of Trump came from that disconnect between party leaders and the base on immigration.

And while I didn't foresee Hurricane Donald blowing away Bush and Walker, here I also argued Cruz was being underestimated in that his winning Iowa would not be as meaningless as Santorum or Huckabee winning it.

Who are the jokers voting for Cruz?

Haven't you heard?  The GOP base is just so rabidly conservative.  Just ask former nominees Santorum, Huckabee, Keyes, and Buchanan.

Oh wait.

Except a lot of the base didn't love Santorum and Huckabee. Rush Limbaugh, for example, rallied his listeners to stop Huckabee. On the other hand, his and others' gushing over Cruz is probably a factor in Cruz's rise in the polls.

Cruz has also been a much more consequential figure (such that it is) than any of those people have been. I still don't think he has much of a shot, but that counts for something.

My point was Cruz has wider appeal within the GOP primary electorate than past Iowa winners Huckabee and Santorum. Those guys had strong appeal to social conservatives but alienated movement conservatives and were poor fundraisers. Cruz appeals to both social and movement conservatives and is a strong fundraiser. The implication that a candidate will lose the GOP nomination for being too conservative isn't backed up by those past examples. Not saying Cruz is in as strong a position as Bush or Walker but I think he's clearly the third most likely nominee, much more so than Paul (whose record will alienate large chunks of primary voters) and Rubio (who offers nothing that Bush or Walker don't already).

[Orser67]

Why do people obsess over 538 on this forum? This was the view most journalists had of Cruz one year ago.

[Desroko]

Correct on both counts.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

But 538 was using this as a reason he couldn't win the primary.

[Virginiá]

To be clear, Cruz is the least electable of the remaining candidates. He's just your typical right wing nut job and won't win over a single Obama voter no matter what.

is this a joke

No, and if you don't see this as a real possibility, you're kidding yourself.

The further you go right, the more those people think their right-wing nutjob candidates of choice are exactly the type of presidential material they think a large majority of America wants.

Polls be damned! The silent majority will rise again!

[Fargobison]

This thread reminds me of what Jimmy Kimmel said to Cruz on his show tonight...

Kimmel to Cruz just now: "You kind of held out until they found someone that they like less than you."
Cruz: "It's a powerful strategy."

[BlueSwan]

Well, my analysis was the same. Even a couple of months ago I still gave Cruz more or less a zero procent chance of even winning the nomination and frankly I'm shocked that he has been doing as well as he has. He is incredibly unlikable. At least Trump is charismatic. Cruz is not, he's so obviously a sleazeball that everyone who has ever worked with him hates. And I'm not someone who just hates on all conservatives. Far from it. Huckabee, Perry, Paul, Carson, even Santorum have all got their charms in one way or another. But Cruz?? I'm stunned that he hasn't crashed and burned yet.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Why do people obsess over 538 on this forum? This was the view most journalists had of Cruz one year ago.

When Nate Silver started 538, in its original incarnation, it was almost pure statistics devoid of the usual hackery and talking heads and was more accurate than the usual regime of punditry. Since then, it's devolved into statistics-flavored hackery and talking heads, and is no more accurate than the usual regime of punditry.

[BlueSwan]

Why do people obsess over 538 on this forum? This was the view most journalists had of Cruz one year ago.

When Nate Silver started 538, in its original incarnation, it was almost pure statistics devoid of the usual hackery and talking heads and was more accurate than the usual regime of punditry. Since then, it's devolved into statistics-flavored hackery and talking heads, and is no more accurate than the usual regime of punditry.

This is very true. Silver really went off the end with his insistence that we ignore the numbers for Trump early on (and not so early on). He got famous by doing the opposite - NEVER ignoring the numbers but instead ignoring the pundits.

[Lurker]

Fivethirtyeight has been largely terrible during this campaign, of course, though they don't deserve that much grief for believing this about Cruz or Trump at that point (though they should have been far less adamant). However, the way they buried their head in the sand for the following months, blatantly ignoring any evidence that could put their precious theories and models in doubt...

Btw, I just read a Silver piece called "How Trump hacked the Media", and though it contains some interesting observations, there are also indications that he has learned little from his utter failure during the primaries.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Why do people obsess over 538 on this forum? This was the view most journalists had of Cruz one year ago.

When Nate Silver started 538, in its original incarnation, it was almost pure statistics devoid of the usual hackery and talking heads and was more accurate than the usual regime of punditry. Since then, it's devolved into statistics-flavored hackery and talking heads, and is no more accurate than the usual regime of punditry.