Open Letter to the Republican Party: You Can Hate Cruz or Trump, But Not Both
Often a parent will tell a child, “You can pick one toy.” Sometimes the child throws a tantrum and screams, “But I want both!” If the parent gets annoyed enough, the child gets neither.
Republicans find themselves in a similar strategic situation politically. I’d like to emphasize that I’m not writing this as propaganda for any candidate, nor am I evaluating their policies or their personal qualities. I just want to lay out a strategic situation as objectively as I can. In short, the Party elite, the mandarins plotting with Karl Rove and Mitt Romney how to stop the Trump bulldozer, have maybe barely enough juice in the tank to stop him if they focus purely on that goal.
But they’re dividing their attention because they cannot stand Cruz almost as much as Trump. I’m not going to get into why here, there’s plenty written about it, but suffice to say both of them don’t play ball with the Party (Cruz not as fully as expected of most Republicans and Trump not only isn’t playing ball, he’s in the locker room taking a knife to pop every ball in the bucket so no one else can play).
Therefore party leaders are using up limited resources and voter support to try to knock out the #2 guy, Cruz, in the hopes that the #3 guy, Rubio, can defeat the as of yet indomitable leader, Trump.
This strategy is doomed. Right now Rubio is polling third nationally (the pink line behind the black line representing Cruz and the blue line representing Trump):
Well, but it’s not just about national polls, it’s about state races! Sure enough, Cruz is actually leading in Texas. And as I’ll explain in a minute, Trump would be exceptionally smart to not fight Cruz too hard over Texas:
This lead in Texas is one of the very few leads any other candidate has over Trump anywhere. He looks poised to make a clean sweep of every other primary on Tuesday (if you don’t believe me, see for yourself on RealClearPolitics or FiveThirtyEight). Also it’s worth remembering Cruz actually won Iowa, and then other than that it looks like all Trump everywhere right now.
Hopes are big for Rubio in Virginia, where he’s down nearly 15%:
He also must win in his home state of Florida to have any real credibility or chance, and he’s losing even worse there:
So if Trump is really a political genius, he’ll help Cruz win in Texas while focusing all his guns on Rubio. Given that Republicans won’t unite behind Cruz anytime soon, this would ensure both candidates stay in and keep splitting the vote.
Remember, the whole theory has been that anti-Trump support would “consolidate” behind an anti-Trump candidate. Good luck waiting for that to happen for Rubio if Trump is approaching 40% in Marco’s home state or nearly 50% in northern, moderate states like Massachusetts.
And would the pro-Rubio Party elders explain to us please how someone can consolidate support by winning no states against Cruz, who at least might win his home state and one other, and who has a loyal and broad base of support for fundraising?
Ironically, if Cruz and others drop out that would HELP Trump almost as much or perhaps more than Rubio, based on second choice preferences of voters, as well as the common sense understanding that protest, anti-establishment voters who are now split between Trump and Cruz, and to a lesser degree Carson, would prefer another anti-establishment candidate like Trump over the former Tea Partier turned Mitt Romney-wing standard bearer, Rubio. This excellent Bloomberg piece offers a thorough argument against the consolidation theory, but here are key highlights:
- “Kasich fans are torn between Rubio (24 percent), Trump (16 percent) and Cruz (10 percent).”
- “Ben Carson supporters split between Cruz (24 percent), Trump (22 percent) and Rubio (16 percent).”
- “Cruz supporters split 33 percent for Rubio and 26 percent for Trump.”
Does that sound like the others dropping out and consolidating behind Rubio will close a 15, 20, or 25+ point gap with Trump? Rubio will actually fall further behind if Carson drops out, and he’ll get an edge of 8 points from Kasich supporters, which is 8% of Kasich’s 9% of the national vote or so, or about <1% of a margin. Super. Meanwhile Cruz in this poll might help Rubio a bit (7% spread) if he drops out, but again, Trump inches closer and closer to 50% as Rubio tries to close a 15-20 point gap a few points at a time. There are other polls and other reasons to believe Rubio wouldn’t get anywhere close to enough of a boost from Cruz voters. The two Senators simply motivate people for quite different reasons (for example one of Cruz’s pillars of support is evangelicals, a group Trump’s running surprisingly strong with).
On the other hand, if Rubio took one for the team Cruz might see a more serious benefit on top of his already more competitive starting position: “The NBC/SurveyMonkey poll found that Rubio supporters prefer Cruz over Trump as their second choice by a margin of 31 to 17 percent.”
I could drill more and more into these sort of considerations (check out this helpful analysis from Vox if you’d like more), but you’ll find the situation looks similar from most angles. As one additional data point, Cruz actually is beating Rubio at fundraising as well. In all fairness, Cruz has some issues down the road also with later states. But everyone in the party and watching this closely knows damn well there won’t be a “down the road” if Trump keeps steamrolling a divided field while Rubio runs third nationally and wins nothing, not even his own state! There will be a bandwagon effect. You’re already seeing it with Christie, LePage and Sessions endorsements within the last week. The establishment’s dam is breaking. People will move towards Trump. The oppo attacks that haven’t worked for 7 months aren’t going to suddenly break through Trump’s bedrock of 35%+ support because of a breathless week of punches from Rubio (who by the way is in an exceptionally weak position to attack Trump for ties to fraudulent for profit universities, insinuations of financial difficulties, and being soft or opportunistic on illegal immigration).
Perhaps, however, a disciplined, two month effort in a one-on-one contest could at least give another candidate a near tie to go into the convention, and make it less likely that Trump can scream he was robbed and take many angry voters with him with the moral argument on his side.
Don’t let party elites tell you they’re trying to do everything they can to stop Trump. If they were, they’d look at the clear evidence above and see that Cruz has earned the #2 spot and looks likely to outperform Rubio over the next few weeks in the way that matters strategically: actually winning states (as opposed to fighting over distant seconds and thirds).
So listen up Republican elites. Your voters are very angry with you. So angry they’re giving 50%+ of their support to two candidates you loathe and whom voters know you loathe. Even Rubio, your mainstream anointed white knight savior to be, started in the protest Tea Party. So stop twiddling your thumbs and get behind Cruz as the guy who has a realistic chance of beating Trump and drop the Rubio fantasy. Here you have Charlie Cooke talking about opposing Trump in terms of Agincourt and the Battle of Britain over at National Review. Either it’s all hands on deck or not, but if it IS this serious then there’s no time to wait for Rubio to achieve some miracle and change the game. Unite behind Cruz or admit you dislike him so much you’d rather hand the primaries to Trump.
