CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Seven straight convincing victories put an end to the Ted Cruz campaign Tuesday night–clearing a path for billionaire Donald Trump to become the presumptive, if not de facto, nominee for the Republican Party.
A seeming long-shot last summer, Trump’s ascent to the top of the crowded field of 17 was quicker than anyone could have expected. Though he’s taken dents in his armor, he’s never relinquished the delegate lead, save for a stumble out of the gates in Iowa.
Though Trump has one last contender standing between him and the nomination, his chances of hitting 1237 delegates before the Republican National Convention looks almost certain.
It’s worth noting, seemingly, that every time Trump has been counted out–a victim of a contested convention or some other #NeverTrump idea–he has come back and won.
Now that Donald Trump is so close to clinching a major nomination, the main question on everybody’s mind on whether or not he can win in November. When you consider he is likely facing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one of the most unpopular general election candidates in U.S. history, you would have to like Mr. Trump’s chances.
The problem? The only person with worse unfavorable ratings than Hillary Clinton is Donald Trump himself.
Immigration
This was the “shot heard round the world” that essentially launched the Trump campaign.
Mr. Trump has called for a no-nonsense immigration policy that calls for building a wall along the US-Mexico border and result in mass deportations. The feasibility of the wall and the deportation plan has been called into question by many experts, but is less of a concern for Trump supporters.
Diana Bartley, who is running to be a committed Trump delegate at the RNC in July, said it’s not about specific policy proposals. Rather, she believes that Trump’s vision is all that matters for now. Hammering out the nitty-gritty details can be saved for once he’s in the Oval Office.
“Once I reviewed the individuals that were running, I really didn’t find anyone else that I felt was qualified to get our country back to a position where it was strong once again and we were able to provide for our citizens employment and security,” Bartley said.
But Fairmont State Political Science and Law Professor Greg Noone sees a much bigger problem than just the feasibility of Trump’s immigration policy.
“The Republican Party after this is going to have to sit down and have a long talk about what they view the place of Hispanics in America because anybody who gets immigration right could win the Hispanic vote for the next two or three generations,” Greg Noone said.
Noone said anything can happen between May and November 8, but there are three voting blocs that are currently heavily favoring Hillary that could doom Trump: women, Hispanics, and African-Americans.
It’s one of many polarizing issues that will strike a wedge between the two presumptive nominees. The Hispanic voting bloc has increased it’s size in the electorate from 2 percent in 1992 to 10 percent in 2012. The share of those voters voting Democrat has increased in back-to-back elections. The Democrats won the Hispanic vote just 53-44 in 2004, but in 2012 won that bloc 71-27.
Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric helped launch his stardom in the Republican Primary, but could be his undoing in November. And, if Mr. Trump’s current unfavorable numbers hold up, Noone believes down-ballot Republicans in the House and Senate will need to be a little more creative in how they run their races.
“If it’s Cruz or Trump, then it’s kind of every man for himself,” Noone said in interview before Cruz officially called it quits. “They’re going to be allowed to abandon the party’s nominee and run at a ‘Hey look. Hillary’s going to be the next President. That’s why you need to re-elect me so we keep checks and balance and the Republicans keep running the Senate.'”
The economy
Trump’s bigger claim to fame than his wildly controversial immigration policy is his status as a wealthy real estate tycoon worth billions of dollars. He’s experienced both success and failure as a businessman. Perhaps both of those things are what appeal to his supporters, but Bartley said it’s much simpler than that. His experience in business and his inexperience in politics combined are what make him so attractive to his supporters
“He’s not taking money from anybody,” Bartley said. “He’s financing his own campaign. He’s not beholden to any PAC information. He’s not pooling into anything like that.”
Noone said that economic insecurity is where Trump is really earning the meat of his voting support. While Trump has made a point to talk about how high taxes are–and his tax plan reflects that–he has seized on the economic populism that has also caught fire in the Sanders campaign: an anti-free trade inferno.
“[Republicans] continually, every time they talk about helping the economy, it basically translates to tax cuts for the wealthy,” Noone said. “And the white male who is struggling to keep a job or find a job is tired of that.”
Trump’s rhetoric on trade has lead some experts to believe he might support crippling tariffs as part of a trade war with Mexico or China, but Noone said that his supporters don’t care about trade wars. They care that manufacturing jobs are disappearing.
“That’s the hard working class,” he said. “That’s the blue collar guy who had a good job in industry–a good factory job. Trump has been able to talk about how those factory job’s are gone because these people have shipped everything over seas to China.”
Noone said this is a winning strategy in the Republican Primary, but said Trump is going to have to widen his appeal if he expects to defeat Hillary Clinton in November.
“In 2012, it’s the first year in America that more white people died than were born,” Noone said. “If you’re putting all your chips in just appealing to the white, male voter, that’s a diminishing breed. That’s a dying breed.”
The math indicates that white male voters, who have long favored GOP nominees, have dropped as a share of the electorate by 10 percentage points in the time from President Reagan to Mitt Romney’s failed campaign four years ago. One report suggests that Trump would need to win 70 percent of the white male vote to win the election in November. Romney won 62 percent of white males four years ago, but lost the popular vote by nearly five million votes.
For now, Trump’s economic populism is appealing to these groups. Noone, though, said it’s surprising that these blue-collar voters have gravitated to Trump like they have considering Trump would usually be a textbook definition of a member of the establishment–whether inside or outside the realm of politics.
“Trump, on the other hand, is much more disingenuous with how he’s doing it because Trump’s, of course, a billionaire, he’s benefited greatly from Wall Street, he’s benefited from everything the one percenters (sic) benefit from,” Noone said while comparing the Trump and Sanders campaigns. “But Trump has tapped into the angry white male voter who feels like he’s being left behind.”
“The way Trump has been able to kind of circle the square here has been really very remarkable considering how much he has benefited from being one of the one percent–how he’s been able to talk to that 99 percent,” Noone said.
Trump has said his tax plan and economic plan would grow the U.S. economy anywhere between three and six percent. He additionally claims that the massive, across-the-board tax cuts in his economic plan would pay for themselves through that growth and allow the U.S. to pay down the long-term debt during a hypothetical Trump second term.
WVU’s Director of The Bureau of Business & Economic Research John Deskins said, for starters, that economic growth at that level is highly unlikely in the modern U.S. economy.
“As country’s mature, the universal pattern is they show slower rates of economic growth in the long run,” Deskins said. “Now the U.S. is a very mature economy. We’re one of the richest countries in the world. For many, many, many years we’ve seen much lower rates of economic growth compared to these low-income countries that are booming.”
Economic reporters with the Washington Post released a report last month detailing what level of growth a Trump economy would need to pay down the debt in eight years. That report concluded that growth would need to be anywhere between 13 and 24 percent, which they described as “inconceivable.”
For potential Trump surrogate Diana Bartley, the national debt remains among her top concerns.
“I declared for Donald Trump for a lot of reasons, but one of the most prevalent is the fact that our national debt to me is one of our biggest national security issues,” Bartley said.
John Deskins said that the political focus on the national debt may not be as warranted as some on the Right believe. He said the bigger threat isn’t the size of the debt, but rather it’s relationship to U.S. Gross Domestic Product. The bigger concern, said Deskins, is what would happen if the U.S. had another major recession like the one that began in 2009, which would see the Debt-to-GDP ratio grow even higher.
“The overall national debt rose substantially, and I think we still stand at a place that is sustainable, but if that were to happen again we would be in a much less fortunate position,” Deskins said.
According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, a study of Trump’s proposed tax plan would reduce federal revenue by $9.5 trillion over the first ten years and $15 trillion over the next ten years before taking into account feedback from potential economic growth. The proposal cuts taxes at every level, but high income earners (specifically the Top 0.1% of earners) would earn the biggest tax break under a Trump presidency.
“I personally think we need to strike a moderate balance between spending and the tax side,” John Deskins said. “I understand that taxes are harmful to the economy. I understand that some spending is good for the economy. I am not in favor of going in the extreme in either direction.”
Is he qualified?
Mr. Trump has received both praise and widespread criticism for not just his outsider status, but his seeming lack of interest in researching the type of wonky public policy issues that have made GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) so popular in their respective parties.
At times, that has led Trump to give answers on nuclear proliferation, NATO, trade deficits, and an assortment of other issues that have confounded policy experts and led experts to wonder more than once whether Mr. Trump’s campaign was actually serious.
But Bartley said that’s not an issue for her. She said Trump’s overall vision for America is what sold her–not his ability to deliver wonky answers that career politicians have had years to study.
“I feel that while he may not have as much knowledge on some of the issues that the other candidates had because they are lifetime politicians, Mr. Trump is able to select individuals that can fill in those gaps in order to give him the right information for him to make the right judgment call,” she said.
“Mr. Trump is known to be able to surround himself with individuals that make right decisions.”
Trump has also received widespread criticism for a combination of insults and politically divisive statements about Hispanics, Muslims, the disabled, and women that some have deemed politically incorrect and others have deemed as frightening, dangerous, and out-of-touch. Bartley doesn’t agree.
“We have to get back to that point where people take pride in the country, people take pride in patriotism, and stop worrying so much about this politically correct thing that seems to be controlling the way we do business and the way we govern,” she said.
Trump has been accused of a number of things that would have seriously harmed other major candidates in the past. Those accusations include being called an authoritarian who is stoking racial and religious tensions and has been encouraging violence at his rallies. Others see him as a pragmatic deal maker who is occasionally willing to break with GOP dogma.
As with all things Donald Trump, it’s his unpredictability that has turned 2016 into a proverbial year of chaos in electoral politics. Donald Trump can, in a matter of minutes, support punishment for women who get abortions, defend the work that Planned Parenthood does, suggest that the North Carolina controversial anti-LGBTQ “bathroom bill” should not have been passed, and suggest that we should stop saying “Happy Holidays” and only say “Merry Christmas” in department stores.
The level of support, pride, or anger you feel regarding any those statements isn’t really the point. Instead, it’s what these statements have led to that matter. The Trump campaign has essentially sucked all the oxygen from other candidates en route to two billion dollars of free media coverage–far more than any other candidate.
Can he actually win in November?
Few experts thought the former reality star could win the nomination last July. The favorites coming into the 17-candidate free-for-all included former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Trump outlasted all of them. As recently as four weeks ago, many were wondering whether or not he and his campaign were destined to be derailed at an open convention.
One report from insiders of the Clinton camp suggests the former Secretary of State would have preferred to run against Ted Cruz or John Kasich because both were more likely to run traditional conservative campaigns, rather than Trump’s unpredictable wildcard campaign.
It’s also possible that Clinton fears Trump will perform well in the Rust Belt and Midwest–manufacturing areas that have been losing jobs. Those area, including Michigan and Wisconsin, have been reliably Democratic in the past few elections. That would change the map significantly if Trump could put them into play.
Since 2000, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania have been the states that have offered the most volatility in terms of their “purple” swing state status. But if traditionally blue states are up for grabs, has that changed the game for Donald Trump? Or are Donald Trump’s unfavorable ratings among growing portions of the electorate–women, Hispanics, and African-Americans–simply too much to overcome?
Noone said for all the posturing going on by the trailing candidates in the primary fights on both sides, he expects the parties to find unity
“As much as Bernie’s people love him, compare Hillary to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, they’re going to line up behind Hillary,” Noone said.
So Donald Trump has two problems: his overall unfavorable ratings mixed with how disliked he is by majorly important voting blocs.
He and his campaign are anything but conventional–coming much further than the experts have suggested. The road map to victory becomes significantly more difficult as we get closer to November, but if Donald Trump has proven anything since he decided to officially enter politics by riding down an escalator in Trump Tower, it’s that you can never count him out.
UPDATE: This story was published at 5 am EST. As of 12 pm EST, John Kasich is apparently dropping out of the race.
For more, read our previous stories on the other: Bernie Sanders, John Kasich (suspended campaign), and Hillary Clinton.