Politics is often a confusing and messy game, but the current campaign to determine the presidential candidates for 2016 is totally confounding in new ways. On the one hand is huge fluidity and uncertainty about who will emerge from a large group of Republican candidates, with real concerns about the current frontrunners. On the other hand is a striking coalescence towards an early consensus on the Democrats’ candidate.
Hillary Clinton is arguably the most experienced and best-qualified presidential candidate in living memory. Despite constant attacks from Republicans and a push from the left by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, polls have her securely ahead in a Democrat field that has now narrowed to just three – Clinton, Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll of Democrat-leaning voters (Clinton 60, Sanders 34, O’Malley 3) gives her a twenty-six point lead over Sanders and leaves O’Malley barely in the race.
Her position was really sealed in October by her standout performance in the Democrat debate, the announcement (after months of speculation) that vice-president Joe Biden would not enter the race, and the failure of the House Republicans to justify their Benghazi witch hunt – which was then described as such by former House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
Clinton carries some baggage and is not universally liked, but a series of misogynist and racist comments from the Republicans will ensure she gets a major part of the women’s vote, the African-American vote and the Hispanic vote. She is seen as the most trusted 2016 candidate on terrorism. Moreover, she clearly has the ability and temperament to undertake the role of president on the national and stage.
In contrast, her opponents have been described as “the most dishonest, bumbling and underqualified pack of presidential candidates in history” – colourful words that ring true. For months now, the expectation has been that the insurgents, business mogul Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, would collapse under public scrutiny and the weight of their own outrageous pronouncements, and that conservatives Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum would fall by the wayside and clear the way for an establishment candidate like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie or John Kasich.
The polls tell a different story. They also highlight why the Republican National Committee leadership is apoplectic about the future, why the pundits are confounded, why non-Americans are bemused, and why there are still a raft of Republican candidates vying for attention and money.
To the surprise of many, the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll of Republican-leaning voters has Trump (32 per cent) still leading the pack with Carson second (22 per cent) but beginning to flounder, followed by Marco Rubio (11 per cent), Ted Cruz (8 per cent), Jeb Bush (6 per cent), Carly Fiorina (4 per cent), Mike Huckabee, John Kasich and Rand Paul (all at 3 per cent), Chris Christie (2 per cent), Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum (1 per cent), and George Pataki (0).
Trump’s latest inflammatory pledges to crack down on refugees, terrorists and Muslims have exposed what some pundits have called his fascist leanings and the dark side of his political persona. But they have also cemented his lead. In contrast, Carson’s support has plummeted, with Rubio and Cruz threatening to overtake him for the number two spot. The establishment candidates, meanwhile, and particularly Jeb Bush, are going nowhere.
Some of Trump’s appeal reflects the fact that Republican voters are increasingly motivated by anger, increasingly distrustful of Congress and politicians, and increasingly willing to throw away the opportunity to nominate a candidate with proven experience. In a Bloomberg Politics poll, just 22 per cent of Republicans and those who lean that way say they’re best described as “mainstream” in the party, and 45 per cent identify themselves as “anti-establishment.” A third identify as Christian conservative and more identify as Libertarian (14 per cent) than Tea Party (10 per cent).
Trump’s rhetoric and rejection of the status quo in Washington appeals to most of these groups, although Carson leads among those who identify as Christian conservatives. More than half (52 per cent) of Republican-leaning voters polled by ABC News/Washington Post listed “Bring needed change to Washington” as the attribute most important to them in supporting a candidate, and almost half (47 per cent) said Trump would do best at bringing that change.
An MSNBC study found more than 80 per cent of Trump supporters view immigrants as a burden, compared to about six-in-ten non-Trump Republicans. Among those who say they favour deporting undocumented immigrants, Trump leads the Republican field led by twenty-five points.
Most interestingly, Trump supporters are happy to ignore his repeated mistakes, his policy flip-flops and even his serial lying. Earlier this month a Fox News poll found that Carson was the only 2016 candidate deemed honest and trustworthy by a majority of voters. But since then reporters and Trump have questioned whether Carson has embellished his life story in his new book, and his honesty rating and position in the polls have fallen. In contrast, Trump gets a minus-fourteen honesty score in the Fox News poll (41 per cent honest vs 55 per cent not), regularly fails fact-checking scrutiny and has been called out as a liar by the New York Times. Perhaps his brazenness helps; Trump never apologises or backs down when caught out and often resorts to blaming the media.
The Iowa caucuses take place in two months’ time, and eight days later come the New Hampshire primaries. Starting then, winners must begin to emerge from the Republican pack. Conventional wisdom says that with the primaries and caucuses rapidly approaching, voters will cease their flirtation with the disruptive frontrunner Trump, will start paying more attention to the issues and, as the trailing candidates fall away, will shift their support to an establishment figure.
Who that establishment figure might be is not obvious. It was once assumed it would be Jeb Bush, but after the October Republican debate his campaign is described as being in existential crisis. Now in some quarters of the Republican Party there is talk about drafting failed 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney to change the dynamic, despite Romney’s insistence that he will not run again. If the effort to draft Romney is going nowhere, suddenly Cruz and Rubio look much more viable. Carson’s slide in the polls is benefiting Cruz, and supporters of Bush and Fiorina are turning to Rubio.
Rubio has some advantages: he is young, Hispanic and able to walk the fine line between being a radical outsider and having some relevant political experience. But in a head-to-head matchup Trump beats Rubio by fourteen points. According to Vox editor Ezra Klein, this suggests that Trump’s support among Republican voters is greater than his current 30 per cent and he may well benefit as weaker candidates drop out.
Cruz is also trying to cast himself as an outsider with establishment appeal. A new Quinnipiac University poll released last week shows Cruz (23 per cent) running second to Trump (25 per cent) among likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa, ahead of Carson (18 per cent) and Rubio (13 per cent). None of the other candidates polled above 5 per cent. It seems that most of Cruz’s increased support has been at Carson’s expense.
These ongoing dramas have serious consequences for the Republican Party’s brand and ability to raise campaign funds. Big money is a potent weapon, but many Republican donors have so far declined to invest in any campaign because of the race’s volatility; they want to ensure that they back a winner. But the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth has aired ads attacking both Trump and Carson in Iowa, labelling both candidates as “pretenders” and “in over their heads.”
An impotent Congress and the demonisation by Trump and others of minority segments of the American population might well sabotage the Republican Party’s chances in the general presidential campaign before it even gets off the ground, regardless of who is selected as the final candidate.
After Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012, the Republican National Committee produced a report on reinventing the GOP that made the case that if it was to have any chance of winning the presidency next time around, the party must practise inclusion, not exclusion. This means recognising changing national demographics, bringing in Hispanics and African Americans, and ceasing to rely on the votes of white southern males.
With ugly stands against illegal immigrants, refugees and Muslims and the continuation of insinuations that President Obama is a closet Muslim, this crop of presidential contenders is already reshaping the Republican Party in a completely different way. Rubio, Cruz and Bush have disowned the worst of the rhetoric from Trump and others, but, fearful of being seen as weak, have failed to demolish their case for discrimination and persecution.
In a recent New York Times article, conservative columnist David Brooks wrote that the next six months will determine the viability of the Republican Party. If it is unable to respond to changing demographics, this will be the last presidential election cycle in which the party in its current form has even a remote chance of winning the White House. Meanwhile party leaders and donors fear that nominating Trump will have negative ramifications across the board for the GOP, virtually ensuring a Hillary Clinton presidency and increasing the odds that the Senate falls into Democratic hands. •
