The rapidly approaching Donald Trump decline should be entertaining, at least.
After rising all summer, he's pretty much plateaued all fall and his stock seems to be slowly fading. His SNL appearance wasn't anything of the water cooler talk fodder that I think he wanted it to be. Even with the TV ratings bump, there was essentially a huge collective shrug amongst the American people. People are officially getting over Trump. His schtick is now officially old.
I think the GOP base, as crazy as they might be, is slowly realizing that their two leading "outsider" candidates are too fraught with liabilities to stick with for the long term, and they need someone with at least some elected experience. I would expect to see Cruz to pick up former Trump and Carson supporters. He's still a super extremist, but an elected one who the Tea Party types can swallow.
I expect the development of a two person race between Rubio and Cruz. The base and Tea Party types will rally around Cruz, and the establishment types will rally around the seemingly electable and extremely pliable and big money manipulated Rubio. My bet is that the big money establishment side will win out in the end.
This all said, what will be compelling is to watch the inevitable Donald Trump meltdown as voters slowly abandon him for Cruz. His ego won't be able to handle failure, and he'll grow increasingly erratic in his statements and his behavior. So I think we're in store for some real whoppers in the next couple of weeks.
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There's no way Trump or Carson survive until the nomination. And JEB! is falling faster than Major Kong riding an H-bomb.
R&
Although he is not that experienced, the Latino vote would get shaken up a bit by his nomination.
... until he gets out of the race altogether. He HAS plateaued at about 25% - that's his people, and they LOVE him. That 25% is enough to lead or almost lead the pack when the pack is a dozen candidates or more. As the "also rans" drop out over the next few months, the other 75% (who I think HATE or at least fear Trump and the damage he's likely to do) will gravitate to one of the other candidates, and Trump's perceived lead will be diminished. That's when he'll fake an injury and get out of the game.
If the field were only Rubio, Cruz and Trump, he'd be trailing both - by a lot.
There are still two many people in the race. Unless Rubio can claw his way closer, this may boil down to whether Trump will pay for an turnout operation (I -do- think Carson will underperform, because he won't have an organization set up for GOTV.
Last edited Fri Nov 13, 2015, 10:04 AM - Edit history (1)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141258659
