by Sandy » Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:17 am
I'm sure there will be Republicans who will hold their nose and vote for Trump if he is the nominee, simply because they've bought into monolithic partisanship and won't vote for a Democrat. However, I think that among the 75% of Republicans who now have another preference, there are relatively few who will wind up supporting Trump in the long run, should he manage somehow to capture the GOP nomination. Those who are simply politically oriented, and believe that candidates are bound to stick to the party platform no matter what may vote for Trump, though he won't come anywhere near the GOP platform on almost any issue. Those who are discerning enough to listen, and realize that Trump falls a fair bit to the left of Hillary Clinton on many issues, including his health care, energy, and tax policy, may have more of a problem with it. For over a month now, Trump's poll numbers have been slowly dropping, or showing no increase, while the increases have been with Carson, Fiorina and to a lesser extent, Cruz and Rubio.
And while it is early, and a lot of the polling numbers are speculative rather than solid, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. National polls don't really reflect the ability of a candidate to draw well and collect the necessary electoral votes to win the Presidential election. Those mostly red Southern and Midwestern states make an impressive swath of red on a political map, but the bulk of the population lives on the coasts, in the Northeast, and the Upper Midwest. Seven of the ten most populous states have been reliably blue in the last five presidential elections, and the margins for the Democrats have increased in those states in each of those elections, except 2004. Some former "swing states" like Colorado and Nevada, have produced large enough vote majorities for Democrats in the last couple of election cycles to actually no longer be considered swing states. Sanders, BTW, polls very high against Republicans in most of those states as well. That's a much different race than the multi-candidate primaries, where everyone gets a small share of attention.