Dr.Traveler
Mathematician
- Aug 31, 2009
- 3,948
- 652
- 190
Trump Is The Weakest GOP Front-Runner In The Modern Era
Trump Is The Weakest GOP Front-Runner In The Modern Era
By HARRY ENTEN
JULIE JACOBSON / AP
Despite getting drubbed in Wisconsin this week, Donald Trump has won more votes than any other Republican candidate this year. So, he’s doing OK, right? Well, for all the talk that unbound delegates and quirky convention rules could prevent Trump from winning the GOP nomination, it’s easy to forget that Republican voters also play a part. Trump’s 37 percent of the cumulative primary vote and 46 percent of delegates won so far may sound impressive, but his percentages make him the weakest Republican front-runner, at this point in the process, in decades.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers and graphs depicting candidate totals in votes and delegates are the link. Long story short: Trump is a pretty weak candidate using the metric of votes won in the primaries or delegate counts. In the interest of honesty a few things to note:
Trump Is The Weakest GOP Front-Runner In The Modern Era
By HARRY ENTEN
JULIE JACOBSON / AP
Despite getting drubbed in Wisconsin this week, Donald Trump has won more votes than any other Republican candidate this year. So, he’s doing OK, right? Well, for all the talk that unbound delegates and quirky convention rules could prevent Trump from winning the GOP nomination, it’s easy to forget that Republican voters also play a part. Trump’s 37 percent of the cumulative primary vote and 46 percent of delegates won so far may sound impressive, but his percentages make him the weakest Republican front-runner, at this point in the process, in decades.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers and graphs depicting candidate totals in votes and delegates are the link. Long story short: Trump is a pretty weak candidate using the metric of votes won in the primaries or delegate counts. In the interest of honesty a few things to note:
- Trump is facing a tough field. But recall that the field of 17 nominees narrowed quite a bit before Iowa and before South Carolina. Post South Carolina it was essentially a four man race. That isn't that dissimilar from past races.
- Citizen's United is likely playing a role in keeping folks in the race longer. The article points out Santorum ran out of money at about this point in the race against Romney and dropped out. Cruz isn't anywhere near that point financially and neither is Kasich.
- Last: The numbers in the graph may be a bit incomparable as the way delegates are collected, open/closed structure of primaries, etc, change through the year. That makes comparisons tough, but if you do want to compare candidates you'll need to use what you have data-wise.
