Let me begin
by saying that I am not a Republican supporter. Putting on my psephologists/analyst’s
hat I shall try to predict the Republican nominee for 2016 presidential
election. The job of predicting who will win is difficult based on 2 factors. One is that today the Republican stage is more
crowded that the 405 freeway in LA in rush hour on a Friday. Out the 17
original candidates, 15 brave ones are still left standing with 2 of them: Rick
Perry & Scott Walker having bitten the dust. 2nd factor is that in the last
round in 2012 all the major candidates from Newt Gingrich to Herman Cain to
Rick Perry to Rick Santorum lead at one point making the final outcome not know
until well into the primary season.
To analyze
this field which is as large as the Duggar family we have to begin with the elephant
in the room, current front runner Donald Trump. He has successfully managed to
tap into the anger & paranoia of the right wing Tea party members with his
with constant stream of xenophobic & racist statements. He might win over
the fringe elements of Republican Party blaming all the ills of this country on
Mexico or China. But it is not going to win him any independent or Democratic
support come November 2016. He has been very short on policy & vague on
specifics. His popularity numbers were what I felt like the seasonality temperature
variations, rising as the summer wore on peaking in July & August & now
starting to cool down as fall sets in. Opponents have constantly attacked him
for his past history & statements regarding his belief in conservatism. As
more skeletons fall out of the closet it will start to chip away in his poll
numbers which have declined recently. He will simply be an entertaining
sideshow by the time primaries are in full swing next year. Question is not
when goes down but does he go down kicking & screaming sinking the
Republican boat with him or not.
Ben Carson
is neck & neck with Trump in the polls as of today. He doesn’t seem to have
the aura of a candidate who appears presidential. Even though has raised a lot
of money recently he hasn’t been able to articulate any policy point well. He
appears too laid back to make it through the tough grind of the primary. After
8 years of presidential rule by an African American in the White House not sure
if the white base of the party want another one for 4 more years.
Carly
Fiorina has surged in the polls back of 2 excellent debate performances. But
she is constantly hampered by her record at H-P where she was the boss from
1999 till she was fired by board in 2005. The issue of 30K people being let go
at H-P during her during her tenure at H-P is like the 800 pound gorilla she can’t
get off her back. According to recent Yahoo article she has even failed to get
the tech crowd in Silicon Valley with the possibility of a technocrat in the
White House who can help them on a myriad of issues. She has opposed net
neutrality, came out against patent reform & comprehensive immigration
reform, ideas dear to many in Silicon Valley. It is no wonder that she has
found very little support from Valley crowd defending her record at H-P. Her
most memorable line at the Reagan library debate which won her a lot of
plaudits about a Planned Parenthood fetus video at the debate was later found
out to be non-existent. She was grilled about this on the Sunday talk shows
& I believe that this fib is going to hurt her more as this & more of
what she has said gets scrutinized with her profile being more elevated now.
Ted Cruz was
supposed to have been the flag bearer for the Tea Party in this election cycle.
His best bet was to corner the Tea Party vote & hope that the remaining
vote would be divided among the establishment Republicans driving him to the
candidacy. His thunder as so many others has been completely stolen by loud
mouth Donald Trump. His positions have been deemed too extreme not only by
Democrats but also by establishment Republicans like shutting down government in
2013 which did rather than good to the Republican Party. He has jointly
appeared with Trump in the rally against the Iran deal as he knows that his
only shot right now is for Trump to win the nomination & put him on the
ticket along him for vice president.
Jeb Bush is
simply weighed down by the family name. There is certain fatigue to having a 3rd
Bush in the White House in the last 3 decades. He has a solid lead in raising
money due to his family name & lack of any other well-known establishment
candidates. The longer the campaign goes it is to his advantage that other
candidates drop out due to money issues so that he coalesce the Republican
establishment vote around him. But his campaign seems to be stuck in perpetual 2nd
gear with his lack of being able to beat of attacks from Trump & being
unable to push back at other candidates. His vacillating on some major
questions many of which frankly he should have been better prepared to answer
like for e.g. the obvious question of his support for Iraq war which his
brother started. Despite these challenges he is still the odds on favorite to
win due to the huge fund raising & establishment support advantage. Whether
he can drive all of this to conclusion however remains to be seen.
Chris
Christie was thought as being the bully in this race who was going to take on
every one of his Republican & Democratic opponents with his no holds barred
approach. This was all before Trump entered the race. Like Ted Cruz he also has
been overshadowed by Trump. Thus with his USP/distinguishable point being taken
away he is just another middle of the pack candidate. If he ever manages to
rise in the polls his opponents will be sure to dig up “Bridgegate” case which
hasn’t implicated him in any wrongdoing but refuses to die.
Mike
Huckabee & Rick Santorum are still stuck in the Bush era years where they
think that pandering to the evangelical vote is going to help them cruise to
the candidacy. Social issues are a much
smaller issues than 10 – 15 years ago which is seen from the complete reversal
in position for issues like support for gay marriage. Even this dwindling
evangelical vote is going to be split amongst both of them leaving both of
these guys with no hope.
John Kasich has
been touting that he has a track record of being in power in both Congress
& a governor in an important swing state. But with such a crowded field unless
he has an amazing persona or says something ridiculous he is never going to
stand out & gain any traction in the polls.
Rand Paul with
his libertarian agenda including legalizing marijuana & wanting less
involvement overseas militarily makes him persona non grata with half of the
Republican voters making him a longshot to clinch the nomination.
Bobby
Jindal, Lindsey Graham, John Gilmore & George Pataki are polling <1%
which makes one wonder why they are even in the race as they border on being nonexistent.
They are simply burning their supporter’s hard earned money on worthless cause.
The best they can do right now is get on the secondary debate stage. No one
evens looks remotely likely to be in consideration for even the vice president
position.
This leaves
us with the last choice which some of you might have guessed by now.
Before we go
to that here let’s delve into some of the demographic numbers from past
elections. The % of white vote in elections peaked at 89% in 1976 (Ford –
Carter) & remained around 85% till 1992 (Bush – Clinton). However from 1996
election onwards it has declined by 3-4% every election cycle reaching a
historic low of 72% in 2012. 2016 election will see it dip below 70% for the
first time ever in history. This makes the Republican strategy of only
pandering to white voters not the winning formula. Republicans are alienating a
big portion of the expected 30% nonwhite vote with their anti-immigrant
rhetoric. George Bush did manage to win 44 % of the Hispanic vote in 2004 while
Mitt Romney only won 27%. This election cycle one can safely assume that longer
Trump stays in the race that it will go more lower. With these expected
headwinds on the non-white vote side, the Republican nominee has to win around
70% of the white vote to win the presidency. These are staggering numbers which
are really hard to reach considering history. Even the Republican demi-god
Ronald Raegan could only win 66% of the white vote. That’s why after the last
election cycle the mantra of Republican strategists was to expand the
Republican base among Hispanics & African Americans & other races.
Nonwhite voters are so solidly with Democrats that the Democratic nominee would
probably get away with just winning 40% of the white vote.
Talking of
party affiliation, around 45% of voters lean Republican while another 45% lean
Democrat. The remaining 10% who are truly independent is where elections are
lost or won. Last few elections the margin of victory is 2-4%. The true battle
come November 2016 is for this 10%. So the Republican candidate can’t lean so
far right to turn off this constituency which is very crucial to winning the
election. He has to be neither too much to the center to alienate the Tea
Party.
Coming to
the last of these 15 candidates is Marco Rubio bests fits with the above
criteria to win. He is neither as extreme as some of the Tea party backed
candidates like Ted Cruz or Donald Trump while definitely not being a moderate
establishment Republican like Jeb Bush. He can walk this fine line leading him
to appeal to both sides of the Republican Party. His Hispanic roots can appeal to the Hispanic
voter base to vote for him. I am not saying that he needs to advocate amnesty
for illegal immigrants but if he can put forward some sort of immigration
policy that Hispanics & other immigrant communities can be ok with he will
make huge inroads into this vote bank. He was after all a member of the “Gang
of Eight” senators who tried unsuccessfully to reform immigration in 2013.
George Bush fought with members in Congress & Senate unsuccessfully trying
to reform the immigration policy. It didn’t help him win many plaudits from the
right but it certainly helped him win two elections. His biggest challenge will
however be fighting a compatriot from his own state of Florida: Jeb Bush. Since
he is up for reelection in 2016 in the Senate he is by default giving up his
Senate seat. He might be very well fighting for his political survival as if he
loses he might be pushed into political wilderness. Just ask John Edwards who
no one remembers today but he essentially gave up his senate seat to be the ticket
as the vice presidential candidate. His relative young age of 44 can help him
appeal to the youth voters who are mostly with the Democrats. Assuming Hillary
is the most likely Democratic candidate a dream Republican ticket would be
Rubio & Carly. This would help them check off all the boxes that a
Republican needs to be successful in the general election: appeal to Hispanics,
young voters & women (with Carly acting as a counterweight against
Hillary). This might not help them score wins over the Democrats these categories
but chip away enough votes in these categories to neutralize the Democrats
solid advantage in these categories.
Looking at
the betting odds Jeb Bush would seem the presumptive Republican nominee right
now. However polling wise top 3 candidates are non-establishment candidates:
Trump, Carly & Carson who I believe will slowly fade out over time leaving
the door open for others. Rubio is very close behind them in the polls for now quietly
lurking to surge forward when others fall to the wayside. Don’t discount also
the extreme possibility of no one getting enough votes heading into the
Republican convention to clinch the nomination thus setting up the stage for a
brokered convention. That could work to Rubio’s advantage as he could easily
appeal to both sides of the party as a compromise candidate whom they could get
behind. He doesn’t get the publicity like other candidates but to be fair most
of the oxygen in terms of media coverage is being sucked up by Trump. To
conclude I strongly believe now that Rubio would be the winner of the
Republican nomination & also the best bet for Republicans come November
2016.
