This week is the official start to the 2016 election season, kicking off with the Iowa Caucus. After half a year of ridiculous polls and candidates stabbing each other in the back, we’ll finally have some real results. Many people believe that the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary are the two most important elections of the primary season. While they are important in setting the tone for the election year, they only reveal how voters feel about the current candidates based on the last few months. Here’s what we can take away from the Iowa Caucus.
No matter how well Trump does in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will not be our next President.
It’s astounding that Trump has gained a strong portion of the conservative support, 33% in the latest poll by CNN, by saying absolutely nothing intelligent. His entire discourse has been littered with phrases like, “We have losers running our country,” and “I’m gonna be so good at the military, I’m gonna make your head spin.”
His lack of political experience is a gaping hole in the armor, and his whole “Make America Great Again” slogan is a little confusing. Exactly when was America “great?” Was it when we had African slaves, denied women the vote, or imposed segregation? When exactly was America “great” in the first place?
So, why is Trump ahead? He’s leading for a couple reasons. Number one, there are still a lot of Republican candidates. According to CNN, third of the voters might stand with Trump, while a fifth stands with Cruz. The remaining voters stand with one of the other “establishment” candidates (Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie). As each seasoned Republican drops out of the race, their voters will likely back another established candidate rather than Trump or Cruz. Second, if not enough candidates drop out before the end of primary season, the decision is likely to go to convention where delegates from the Republican National Committee (RNC) will back a candidate whose name will definitely not be Trump, and probably not Cruz either. This will be because none of the Republican candidates will have the necessary number of delegates needed to win the nomination.
Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to the conservative voting base and say that Trump does win the Republican nomination. There is no way in a million years that a novice like Trump could beat out Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in a general election. The primary season is about winning over the 40 percent of voters on your side of the political aisle, while a general election is more about fighting for the last 20 percent of voters in the middle who could go either way.
(Disclaimer: those are numbers used for simple math rather than hard statistical evidence. The point is not the numbers, the point is getting the gist of the election process down. Assuming 2/5ths of Americans almost always vote Republican, 2/5ths almost always vote Democrat, and the last 1/5th could go either way is a means of explaining how said election process works, and the percentages are not meant to be taken as hard evidence.)
Trump might excite a lot of die-hard conservatives, but he’s absolutely terrifying to people in the middle. So, the 87 percent of people who gag at the thought of President Trump need not worry; (33 percent of Trump supporters out of 40 percent of the voting base [Republicans] is around 13 percent, meaning that 87 percent of the country would rather have someone else other than the Donald, therefore, by extension meaning that Trump won’t be our next President.)
Republicans don’t like Cruz almost as much as they don’t like Trump.
Not a single Republican senator (to this point) has endorsed Cruz’s campaign. He’s been described as difficult to work with, and impossible to compromise with. The difference between Cruz and Trump, however, is that Cruz could actually win the nomination. He's experienced enough to win the nod, and he's competitive enough to fight in the general election. If this was another country, the Republican Party would be split into three parties: a fiscal/economic based party, a social/moral conservative party, and a small government party. You have Republicans from each of these factions represented here. There are fiscal conservatives (Jeb Bush, John Kasich), social conservatives (Ted Cruz, Ben Carson), and small government libertarians (Rand Paul).
Ted Cruz may just be charismatic enough to win the Party’s nomination and have a competitive general election season. I’m not sure if he would win yet or not. This is a story line to pay close attention to for the next several months.
Sanders may have had a good showing so far early in the election season, but he needs to expand his voter base if he wants to win.
Sanders is making a splash with university students all over the country with his promise of free public university tuition. You won’t go to many US college campuses without finding a strong population of students “feeling the Bern.” Sanders naturally has a strong lead in the New Hampshire polls, considering that he’s a senator from Vermont. Sanders and Clinton will also likely finish close in the Iowa Caucus, splitting delegates down the middle. But, besides these first early primaries, Sanders isn’t polling well in other states like South Carolina, where a large portion of the Democratic population is Black and Latino. Bernie needs to do a better job of giving these voters a reason to support him. Sanders doesn’t lack experience in minority issues. He walked side-by-side with Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement, and has long supported equal rights for the LGBTQ community before it became mainstream only a few years ago. Sanders can win the Democratic nomination, but he needs to give minorities a reason to vote for him over Hillary Clinton.
It looks like the Democrats are more unified behind their candidates, which could help them maintain the White House through at least 2020.
It may be because there are only two viable Democratic candidates (sorry O’Malley, but you haven’t raised poll numbers in six months, and you’re polling at seven percent at best in Iowa). Fact of the matter is that Democrats are going to unify behind whoever their candidate is, whether it be Clinton or Sanders. There are still too many Republican nominees to give the conservative base a sense of solidarity. All the candidates have taken a pledge to stand behind whoever the eventual nominee will be, but the sooner they have a nominee, the better. My home state of Indiana’s primary isn’t until May. The Democratic nominee may have been decided on by that time (which is why Indiana’s support of Clinton in 2008 didn’t mean squat seeing as Obama had all but already won the nomination.) If the Republican field remains similar for the next few months, we may be seeing a lot of Republicans visiting the Hoosier state in May. The basic principle of an election is that the sooner you can unite behind a candidate, the quicker you can focus on the general election. The last thing the Republicans want is to give the Democratic Party a month or two head start on the general election, but so far, that’s where they’re headed. Stay tuned for more details, and go out and vote!
