Donald Trump remains firmly ensconced as the Republican front-runner, the only candidate with a mathematically plausible path to clinching the nomination on the first ballot. Yet his candidacy is leaving the party so divided that its nomination may not be worth much come November.
Consider one poll number that is on the surface encouraging for Trump: 54 percent of Republicans told Monmouth University that the Republican National Convention should nominate him if he has the highest delegate count, even if it is less than an absolute majority.
That’s been Trump’s argument: he faced 16 well-known Republicans, beat them and should get the nomination on the basis of no one else getting as many delegates as he’s won through the primaries and caucuses, rules be damned.
Look deeper and this poll isn’t all good news for Trump, however. While only a little more than a third of Republicans overall want the nominee chosen at a contested convention, Republicans supporting candidates other than Trump feel differently.
In fact, 55 percent of anti-Trump Republicans want the convention to nominate someone else even if he has a plurality of delegates. Some 47 percent of Trump supporters said they’d bolt the GOP or stay home under this scenario. Other polling has found high percentages of anti-Trump Republicans making similar threats if the billionaire is the nominee.
This is hardly the only reason Trump has been performing increasingly worse in general election match-ups with Hillary Clinton and even Bernie Sanders, but it’s a factor. Conservative opposition to Trump is hardening, not softening. Conservative media outlets, ranging from the print magazines to Fox News, have been as tough on him as the mainstream media (with some exceptions).
You can’t take a pounding every night from everyone from Megyn Kelly to MSNBC and not have it make some impact, even if you’re Donald Trump. Anti-Trump forces in the GOP have been able drive up the front-runner’s negatives even if they haven’t been able to beat him consistently. (Trump himself has obviously played a big role in driving up those negatives too.)
Now would seem to be the time for Republicans to start rallying around Ted Cruz. He’s earned the backing of establishment figures like Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham in addition to the conservative Club for Growth, for example.
Yet Cruz has still only been endorsed by two sitting senators. He has the backing of five incumbent governors, counting Guam. He does have significant support from conservative members of the House and other down-ballot elected officials, but if this is a rallying around Cruz it’s pretty thin gruel.
Even the endorsements Cruz does have are often prefaced with disclaimers about how important it is to stop Trump and sometimes about how terrible the Texan is. Graham said Cruz “is certainly not my top preference.”
Strategic anti-Trump voting has had its successes, most notably in Ohio and Utah. But it has been hampered by the other candidates not being willing to put aside their personal ambitions. John Kasich campaigned in Utah and has already headed to Wisconsin. That’s his prerogative, but not necessarily the best way to keep Trump from getting a majority.
Cruz and Marco Rubio continued jockeying for position after it became apparent they would have difficulty taking on Trump on their own. Their supporters have kept sparring even after Rubio is out of the race.
While Cruz once seemed best positioned to keep Trump in his supporters in the fold — that was certainly his initial strategy — the contest between them has gotten increasingly nasty. That’s more Trump’s fault than Cruz’s, but it doesn’t help anyone unite the party in the end.
“Unity” will be the buzzword as Republicans contemplate their presidential ticket. Right now, it’s in short supply.
