In theory, the 2016 presidential race is winnable for Republicans. In 14 out of 15 states, GOP turnout is up, sometimes shattering previous records. Democratic turnout is down, sometimes by more than 20 percent.
Yes, that is comparing Democratic turnout to 2008, when you had a highly competitive race for the nomination and Barack Obama was bringing out a lot of young and African-American voters. But Democrats are anxious and it does not bode well for Hillary Clinton’s ability to replicate the Obama turnout juggernaut in November. And lots of Republicans are turning out in states that aren’t particularly competitive.
Clinton gets low marks for trustworthiness and honesty even in Democratic primaries. Move to the general election and things like her homebrew email server become a bigger issue. So do the Clinton character concerns. That can’t be encouraging.
If the electorate is a little bit more conservative than it was in 2012, when Obama won just 51 percent of the popular vote, it’s easy to envision Clinton coming out on the losing side.
In practice, however, Super Tuesday revealed Republicans are going to have problems putting Humpty back together again.
Donald Trump is winning most states, sometimes by sizeable margins. But even in states he won, like Arkansas, a high percentage of Republicans say they won’t be happy with him as the nominee. That doesn’t necessarily mean GOP voters will embrace the conservative Twitter hashtag #NeverTrump, but it doesn’t show the same rallying effect that more traditional front-runners have enjoyed.
Nevertheless, Trump’s opponents are starting to give up on beating him in the primaries and are instead gaming out scenarios where they beat him at the convention. That’s one hell of a concession.
But maybe a necessary one since the Republican race isn’t going to winnow into a two-man contest anytime soon. Ted Cruz did better than expected, winning several states and carrying Texas by a healthy margin, and is now too close to Trump in the delegate count to bow out.
Marco Rubio won his first state. While he didn’t do well enough to confirm his preferred narrative of a Rubio vs. Trump race, Minnesota took away the stigma of being winless. And even if he had lost Minnesota as he ultimately lost Virginia, he was never going to drop out before Florida.
Similarly, John Kasich is staying in for his home state of Ohio and perhaps Michigan even though he has only done somewhat well in two states, New Hampshire and Vermont (he lost both). That doesn’t justify comparing Rubio to unsuccessful Pepsi flavors, but you can’t really expect candidates to abandon the field prior to their theory of how they’d win being tested.
If the only way to beat Trump is a contested convention, the new conventional wisdom is that everyone must stay in. Rubio needs to beat Trump in Florida, Kasich in Ohio. Cruz needs to compete with Trump in the South. Even Ben Carson can continue to add ingredients to the fruit salad of the GOP race.
It’s debatable how workable this actually is. But even if successful, it doesn’t seem likely to set up the party well for the general election. The choice then becomes rejecting the plurality winner in favor of someone who received fewer primary votes or no votes at all, infuriating Trump’s supporters who are already the GOP’s angriest voters as well as the ones with the most tenuous loyalty to the party establishment. Or the party can nominate Trump, a candidate both the party establishment and the conservative movement pulled out all the stops to defeat and divide the GOP that way.
Perhaps there is some way around all this. But at the moment, it looks like one of those famous Iowa coin tosses: heads Democrats win, tails Republicans lose.
