Jophiel wrote:
Not "guaranteed" and it relies on Trump's share rising as weaker candidates eventually drop out (which is a reasonable assumption) but people saying that Trump can't win because he's lacking a majority of support are either fooling themselves or just don't understand the nomination process.
That's not a reasonable assumption at all (and frankly where I think is assertion falls apart). He's comparing historical patterns in which all of the top 4-5 candidates were traditional GOP candidates for whom the normal party machine would willingly support based on a "wait and see how things go" approach. Which is why leading in a sufficient number of early primaries can catapult one candidate ahead of the rest for the back half of the primary season. Trump does not fit that category. His negatives among rank and file Republicans are silly high. Most of the PACs will not support him
no matter what.
As weaker candidates drop out, their support will flow to whomever remains
who isn't Trump. Period. So while trump may pull in a disproportionate number of candidates early on, after just a few round of primaries, the party supporters will have settled on one or two others to oppose him, at which point the numbers will shift dramatically away from him. And it'll do so right as we enter the "winner takes all" states (and frankly, some of the states with the largest delegate pools as well). At which point, his cap will kill him.
I'll also point out that I don't buy at all that his real support in the primaries will be 30%. I know you disagree with this, and we could continue arguing this forever (but that seems silly at this point), but I just don't see him actually getting those numbers. He's essentially running a campaign focused on polling numbers, but not so much on primary voters. He has not expended the effort on the ground game that other candidates have (the most common term I've heard applied to his is "amateurish"), basically counting on the fact that he's "leading in the polls" to magically translate into big wins for him. Again, I know we disagree on this, but I really do think that a lot of people are going to be surprised at the numbers in the first handful of primaries. Trump will do "ok", but he wont win across the board and quite possibly might not win *any* of the early primary and caucus states.
I suppose at this point, we can just wait and see what happens though. I just don't think you can discount the absence of traditional party political organizations, which normally facilitate the ground games for candidates in the states themselves, doing so on behalf of the Trump campaign. He may think it's all just about money and advertising, and while that certainly can boost his poll numbers through the roof when all they have to do is answer a question over the phone, getting people to actually show up and vote on primary day requires having people who know the area spending the time and effort canvassing. His efforts in this area have been anemic at best. I'm sure that his polling popularity will translate into some decent primary showings, but I don't think those showings will nearly as impressive as many people think.