mostly-false qualms
LOL...it's only false qualms if you have bigoted and hatred views. When you have many of our allies banning you, the vast majority of latino, black and muslims have VERY unfavorable view in you....it likely means you got issues. Heck, you got many prominent Republicans saying he's got hateful rhetoric and is a terrible example for Republicans.
People going to the polls is a good thing.
It is....but if you're hoping for a Trump win, it's bad when the people going are voting for the other candidate.
That's your interpretation/prediction for this summer after he gets the nom.
It's not really my interpretation...it's what the data is showing. That's why I linked you polls.
My prediction is more like the one from your fivethirtyeight article:
"Partisanship is strong enough in the U.S. that even some of his most ardent detractors in the GOP would come around to support him were he the Republican candidate. Trump has some cunning political instincts, and might not hesitate to shift back to the center if he won the GOP nomination. "
They are arguing that's a possiblity...but they spend the whole fucking article saying it's not likely. The very next sentence is "But Trump would start at a disadvantage: Most Americans just really don’t like the guy". So they argue that anything is possible but that Trump is starting at a major disadvantage
Hating Hillary matters a shitload. That means a lot of his potential detractors are going to vote. This isn't a small % of Republican voters that dislike her.
Dems hate Trump more than Reps hate Hillary and Reps hate Trump more than Dems hate Hillary. This isn't good news for Trump.
Those articles are definitely worth reading, but in my mind Trump has been pretty much destroying every bit of established political wisdom so far.
Yeah, because the REPUBLICAN PARTY is in shambles. The Democratic party is not. It's easy to win the Republican party with his tactics because the Republicans are upset in the direction their party has gone and are upset its been over 8 years since presidency....and it's splitting the party between the establishment voters and those that just want to shake things up (and have racist opinions).
Chooses a moderate running mate
Running mates have LITTLE influence on presidential elections. The most impact they can do is cause harm but they certainly don't help.
Tones back the rhetoric once he's bullied all the other republican nominees out of the field
All that hateful rhetoric is out there now for easy attack ads. It's too late. He went bat shit crazy to win the Republican nomination that he's hurt himself with independents and with other Republican voters. Attack ads just have to show his speech where he said he would support banning muslims from entering, calling Mexicans here illegally "rapist and murderers", show his racist tweet that WILDLY INACCURATE (pants on fire), show the video of Trump saying he supports carpet bombing and killing the family of terrorist, show his misogynistic comments, etc. I haven't even talked about what they can do with everything he did BEFORE he ran for president.
Again, the polls I posted earlier say he is wildly unpopular among Dems and independents....and in a matchup with Hillary, would lose by 57%pts among the black vote. So he loses the hispanic vote by 57pts, the black vote by probably 80pts (90/10)...that's about 1/4 of the voters that he will already lose about 85% to 15%. And if the other minorities (not including black and hispanics) vote like they did in 2012, he's looking at loosing 70/30 for the 6% other minorities. He will lose by more than 70/30 because many of those 'other minorities' are Muslims or Asians (who he has also attacked).
So do the math.
25% * (85%/15% split) = 21% Hillary vs 4% Trump
6% * (70/30): 4.2% Hillary vs 1.8% Trump
Round those number for ease and you got Hillary up 25% to 6% Trump among minorities. That means Trump would need to win the white vote (69% leftover) 44% to 25% to tie Hillary.....or 64% of the white vote. That would be virtually impossible.
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/