From 538, with a couple interesting graphs at the link.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s newly minted presidential campaign is the media equivalent of a juicy rib-eye that robbers use to distract a guard dog during a heist. He’ll get a ton of media attention, and he’ll get to spread his message — which may be all that Cruz is after — but Cruz almost certainly has no shot of winning the nomination, according to every indicator that predicts success in presidential primaries.
First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. To win the Republican or Democratic nomination, you need the backing of at least some of the party apparatus. At a minimum, your fellow party members shouldn’t hate you. Otherwise, you end up getting the Newt Gingrich 2012 treatment. That is, you get pounced on the moment you’re seen as a threat to win the nomination.
If we’re ever in a world where it looks like Cruz could win the nomination, you’ll very likely see such pouncing. You can read article after article about how Cruz has isolated himself in the Senate. It got so bad that he recently had to apologize to his Republican colleagues.
And the Cruz hatred doesn’t stop at the edges of the Senate cloakroom. Influential party actors dislike him, too. I can’t remember another Republican who united Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, Jennifer Rubin and Thomas Sowell in opposition.
That isn’t to say that Cruz is universally hated in Washington. He has a fan base in the very conservative House GOP caucus. House Republicans have, in fact, been egging Cruz on. The problem for Cruz is that endorsements from this group are likely worth about one-third to one-half as much as those from major statewide officials. Representatives usually have very little statewide sway, and most Americans cannot even name their representative.
Second, Cruz has an electability problem. You can see this on two fronts: ideology and polling.
Cruz is likely far too extreme ideologically to win the nomination. The Republican party has a habit of nominating relatively moderate candidates (see John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012). That’s especially the case when the party has been out of the White House for more than one term. A Cruz nomination wouldn’t just break this streak; it would throw it off a 100-floor balcony and drop a piano on it.
Cruz is more conservative than every recent nominee, every other candidate who mounted a serious bid in 2012 and every plausible candidate running or potentially running in 2016. Let’s look at three ideological measures: DW-Nominate common-space scores (which are based on a candidate’s voting record in Congress), fundraising ratings (based on who donates to a candidate), and OnTheIssues.org scores (based on public statements made by the candidate). As my colleague Nate Silver has previously noted, these measures aren’t perfect, but together, they give you a fairly good idea of where a candidate stands.
Cruz is the first or second most conservative candidate on all three scales for former nominees and all the candidates running in the 2016 campaign. There really isn’t much disagreement about where to put Cruz on the left-right spectrum, especially compared with someone like Rand Paul, whose libertarianism creates a public statements score far more liberal than the other indicators.
Indeed, Cruz’s average conservatism score wipes all the other candidates away. There is less ideological space between Michele Bachmann and Marco Rubio than there is between Bachmann and Cruz. Cruz, for instance, has managed to earn a 96 percent rating from the Club for Growth in his two years in Congress, while Bachmann earned only an 88 percent during the same period. Cruz’s public statements can also be categorized as far more conservative than those of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who San Francisco State University assistant political science professor Jason McDaniel argued was potentially too conservative to win the nomination.
And, importantly, the public doesn’t view Cruz as more moderate than he is; polling confirms Cruz’s electability problem.
Four national live interview polls taken since December have tested Cruz in a matchup against Hillary Clinton. In each one of these polls, Cruz has done the worst of any of the possible 2016 Republican nominees. In fact, he’s trailed by an average of 5 percentage points more than the average Republican tested: CNN/Opinion Research Corp (at 6 percentage points), Marist College (at 5 percentage points), Quinnipiac University (at 3 percentage points) and Selzer (at 5 percentage points).
This brings us to our third and final point: In addition to GOP politicians and the overall public, Cruz has been deemed unpresidential by Republican voters, too. In an average of the three live interview national primary preference polls taken over the past month, Cruz is in eighth place with just 5 percent. Can Cruz overcome this low percentage by being people’s second choice? I doubt it.
Last month, CBS News asked Republicans who they would consider for the Republican nomination. Here’s CBS’s chart of the results:
Cruz ended up with the second lowest “yes” rating and the third-lowest net rating (the percentage who said “yes” minus the percentage who said “no”) at +2 percentage points. The only candidates who had worse net ratings were Paul and Chris Christie, both of whom also have very little chance of winning the nomination. Marco Rubio, who is polling just ahead of Cruz at 6 percent nationally in horserace polls but is a serious contender for the nomination, has a much higher upside, with his “yes” percentage at 37 percent and net rating of +18 percentage points.
Importantly, Cruz’s numbers aren’t any better in Iowa, where he needs to do well. He’s also in eighth place there, at just 4 percent in the last three live interview polls. Cruz’s advisers have argued that he can cobble together enough social conservative and libertarian voters to win the nomination. First, very conservative voters account for only a third of all primary voters, so that seems like a flawed strategy. Second, it doesn’t even seem like Cruz is in a position to bring these groups together in very conservative Iowa.
According to a recent Quinnipiac poll in Iowa, Cruz is only seen favorably by 49 percent and 59 percent of voters who have a favorable view of social conservatives Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, respectively. Six other candidates have better favorable ratings among those who like Huckabee, while five other candidates have a better favorable rating among voters who like Santorum.
In the same poll, Cruz has a favorable rating of 58 percent among voters who had a favorable view of Paul. Again, four other candidates had a better favorable rating among Paul fans. Cruz simply isn’t in that good of a position to pick up the slew of these voters if Paul falters down the road.
Put it all together, and you can see why I’m skeptical of Cruz’s chances. He doesn’t have a flaw in his candidacy — he has many. Now, Cruz is going to win some votes, and dominating the GOP’s conservative wing — with press, prestige and money — would be incredibly valuable for Cruz. But we can see why the betting markets give the chronically bad Houston Astros a better chance of winning the American League pennant than Cruz of winning the Republican nomination.
Post by NewOrleans on Mar 29, 2015 18:35:25 GMT -5
Also, since I was on 538:
Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders and Jim Webb are preparing for such a possibility. But they’re not exactly political powerhouses, and so we come to another question: Is the Democratic bench really that weak?
One way to look at that question is via fundraising. A late entrant in 2016 would need to raise money quickly, and the ability to raise money is a decent proxy for appeal and organizing strength. It’s part of the reason Elizabeth Warren is thought of as such a powerful force in the Democratic Party. She raised over $42 million in her 2012 bid for Senate.
Warren’s is a clear case, but simple fundraising numbers don’t always tell the whole story. Factors such as whether a candidate is running for statewide or federal office, whether she’s an incumbent, the competitiveness of her election1 and the size of her home-state donor base2 all affect fundraising.
Keeping all these variables in mind, I looked at how much Democratic governors and senators who won their last campaign raised during the 2010, 2012 and 2014 cycles3 and who outperformed their expected fundraising totals.4
Besides Democratic Party leaders in the Senate — such as former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Bob Menendez, Minority Leader Harry Reid and Vice Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus Chuck Schumer — many of the candidates who greatly outperformed fundraising expectations are the ones we normally talk about as contenders for the presidency. Here’s the data in full. And here are the top 25 Democrats who beat expectations:
CANDIDATE EXPECTED AMOUNT RAISED ACTUAL AMOUNT RAISED DIFFERENCE Elizabeth Warren $24.4m $42.5m +$18.1m Andrew Cuomo 30.7 48.0 +17.3 Al Franken 17.2 30.8 +13.6 Harry Reid 13.6 24.8 +11.2 Sherrod Brown 18.1 24.8 +6.8 Bob Menendez 10.7 17.3 +6.7 Chuck Schumer 13.4 19.5 +6.1 Deval Patrick 11.8 16.3 +4.5 Jeanne Shaheen 12.2 16.5 +4.3 Claire McCaskill 17.0 21.1 +4.1 Bob Casey 10.7 14.1 +3.5 Tammy Baldwin 11.3 14.6 +3.4 Chris Murphy 7.6 10.5 +3.0 Joe Donnelly 2.8 5.7 +2.8 Mazie Hirono 2.8 5.5 +2.8 Patty Murray 14.8 17.1 +2.4 Kirsten Gillibrand 13.4 15.7 +2.3 Jeff Merkley 10.0 12.0 +2.0 Cory Booker 16.2 17.7 +1.5 Earl Ray Tomblin 6.2 7.7 +1.4 Jon Tester 12.0 13.4 +1.4 Mike Beebe 3.7 5.1 +1.4 Steve Beshear 9.5 10.6 +1.1 John Kitzhaber 4.2 5.3 +1.1 Brian Schatz 5.1 6.1 +1.0 Warren, Andrew Cuomo and Deval Patrick are all unlikely to run in 2016, but they’ve been included in a lot of polls. And all three have been prolific fundraisers. Warren raised over $18 million more than expected. Cuomo and Patrick were also among the top performers, even after controlling for their wealthy East Coast donor bases.
Two names popped up, though, that were more surprising. Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Al Franken of Minnesota both raised a lot more money in their 2012 and 2014 campaigns, respectively, than we might have expected. Would they be running in 2016 if Clinton wasn’t?
Some journalists have, in fact, wondered why Brown doesn’t run. He’s seen as a darling of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and he’s managed to win two terms in Ohio, a crucial swing state.
Franken, too, has been the subject of a bit of presidential speculation. He easily won re-election in Minnesota, not an overwhelmingly blue state, in 2014, a very tough year for Democrats nationally. And he wouldn’t be the first actor-turned-politician to make a run for the White House.
Going down the list: a number of well-known and relatively young Democrats such as Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chris Murphy all exceeded fundraising expectations by more than $1 million in their last bids for office. Booker and Gillibrand did so despite having far less than a full term to raise money. All four have been the subject of at least a little White House talk.
Overall, Democrats have several people on the bench first in line to step in on the national stage. Chances are that won’t happen in 2016. But given their age, Baldwin, Booker, Gillibrand and Murphy in particular are young enough that we could see them run in future races.
But we can see why the betting markets give the chronically bad Houston Astros a better chance of winning the American League pennant than Cruz of winning the Republican nomination.
I'm so glad he used the Astros instead of the Twins here.
I can't participate in a serious political thread if I have to spend all my timing wading through the panic and hysteria regarding possible/likely/stated GOP candidates. I need all this arm flailing to stop considering the last two guys we put up for president were McCain and fucking Romney. Huckabee and Santorum and all the other really right wing Jesus Camp graduates have for the last however many years burned themselves out and left us with so so candidates who put the vagina wands on the backburner. So stop playing.
Plus, I'm damned sick of a board claiming they welcome conservative viewpoints turning into shrieking harpies when we discuss conservatives. There's plenty to snark on without the (unlikely) doomsday predictions.
You are above what these conversations have been devolving into for the last few weeks so Imma need you to stop.
Flame away.
Now, back to Hillary. Idk if she needs to drop out of the race per se but I do think all of you who would vote for her, who would LIKE to vote for her, who think she could do a good job to hold her feet to the fire over this. Do you need to DTMFA already? I have no idea but could you at least ask miss I'm a Clinton, I do what I want to go to damned counseling with you?
Stop acting like your only choice here is to divorce her or excuse her shadiness. Set some of her shit on fire and let her know that she can't play like this.
Otherwise, I want to hear no mouths when she carried on unchecked with even shadier behavior.
Unrelated, but I'm high on Easter candy right now.
or maybe that is related. IDK.
Well technically I am not worried about the R candidate. I fully admit I am a party line voter when it comes to presidential elections. The last time I thought about crossing the line was the "pre-palin alternative to GW" McCain
I just can't listen to another tortured explanation as to why the email thing isn't that big of a deal because: they all do it/it wasn't technically against the law/everyone probably knew about it anyway/private emails are private yo!/convenience.
I don't think the above arguments actually do HRC any favors.
Nobody has any more info on what actually happened???
ETA: all the stories I'm finding are about GOP reps being furious about it and saying "she wiped her server clean", but there's little explanation on the details.
People, I bet someone dinner that Ted Cruz will further than Rand Paul in the Republican primaries. This guy is very know it all when it comes to politics. I have to beat him. That is all that matters!!!! Let me hijack this thread to tell you about it.
WASHINGTON — An examination of the server that housed the personal email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used exclusively when she was secretary of state showed that there are no copies of any emails she sent during her time in office, her lawyer told a congressional committee on Friday.
After her representatives determined which emails were government-related and which were private, a setting on the account was changed to retain only emails sent in the previous 60 days, her lawyer, David Kendall, said. He said the setting was altered after she gave the records to the government.
“Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com emails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized,” Mr. Kendall said in a letter to the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The committee subpoenaed the server this month, asking Mrs. Clinton to hand it over to a third party so it could determine which emails were personal and which were government records.
At a news conference this month, Mrs. Clinton appeared to provide two answers about whether she still had copies of her emails. First, she said that she “chose not to keep” her private personal emails after her lawyers had examined the account and determined on their own which ones were personal and which were State Department records. But later, she said that the server, which contained personal communication by her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “will remain private.” The server was kept at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., which is protected around the clock by the Secret Service.
Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure on Friday only heightened suspicions by the committee’s chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, about how she handled her emails, and it is likely to lead to more tension between her and the committee.
Mr. Gowdy said in a written statement that it appeared that Mrs. Clinton deleted the emails after Oct. 28, when the State Department first asked her to turn over emails that were government records. “Not only was the secretary the sole arbiter of what was a public record, she also summarily decided to delete all emails from her server, ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest,” Mr. Gowdy said.
Mrs. Clinton’s “unprecedented email arrangement with herself and her decision nearly two years after she left office to permanently delete all emails” had deprived Americans of a full record of her time in office, he added.
Mr. Gowdy said that Mrs. Clinton would have to answer questions from Congress about her decision, but he did not say whether that would be at a hearing or a private interview.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said in a statement, “She’s ready and willing to come and appear herself for a hearing open to the American public.”
The spokesman, Nick Merrill, added that Mrs. Clinton’s representatives “have been in touch with the committee and the State Department to make clear that she would like her emails made public as soon as possible.”
The ranking Democrat on the committee, Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, defended Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure.
“This confirms what we all knew — that Secretary Clinton already produced her official records to the State Department, that she did not keep her personal emails, and that the select committee has already obtained her emails relating to the attacks in Benghazi,” Mr. Cummings said.
In the letter, Mr. Kendall offered a defense for the process Mrs. Clinton had used to differentiate between personal messages and government records. He said that those procedures were consistent with guidelines from the National Archives and the State Department, which say that an individual can make the decision about what should be preserved as a federal record.
So, Mr. Kendall contended, the process Mrs. Clinton used was “not an ‘arrangement’ that is ‘unprecedented’ or ‘unique,’ but instead the normal procedure carried out by tens of thousands of agency officials and employees in the ordinary course.”
Mrs. Clinton’s review of her emails, however, did not occur when she was secretary of state or shortly after she left office. Last October, nearly two years after she left office, the State Department sent her a letter requesting all government records, like emails, she may have possessed.
In response, she provided the State Department in December with about 30,000 printed emails that she said were government records. She has said that an additional 30,000 emails were personal.
It appears that Mrs. Clinton still has copies of the emails she deemed public records. Attached to Mr. Kendall’s letter was one sent to him by the State Department this week. A letter from the under secretary of state for management, Patrick F. Kennedy, said that the department understood that she wanted to keep copies of those documents. Mr. Kennedy said that the agency had consulted with the National Archives, and that allowing her “access to the documents is in the public interest as it will promote informed discussion” as she responds to congressional and other inquiries.
Mrs. Clinton cannot make the emails public without the State Department’s approval. Mr. Kennedy said that if the State Department determined that any of the documents were classified, “additional steps will be required to safeguard and protect the information.” Mrs. Clinton has said she had no classified information in her emails.
So the outrage is that she may or may not have had emails on her personal email account that could be work related and that could be of interest to the public?
How is this different from any other elected official or high-ranking government official who may or may not have smoking gun emails on their personal email account??? The only difference is that she did not use a government email address and has admitted to using her personal account for work-related matters.
I was prepared to be furious about this but I'm just not sure how this is that explosive.
"There isn’t a Republican alive with a more rabid, committed base of support."
LOLOLOLOL no.
All I know is that people on the National Review's comment page love him.
I don't know any IRL republicans to tell me otherwise.
So that's one sector. I can tell you that among my con friends, he's fairly frightening and we know he'd likely do what the GOP has often done: focus on the completely wrong battlefronts instead of playing into strengths (such as they are) for more universal challenges.
He's not on my radar, at least not right now. And as Habs said, it's waaaaaaaaay too early to make some definitive call that he's automatically the GOP candidate, regardless of what certain comments on a news article say. (I'd love some data study made about how people who comment on any news sites make up what percentage of the American voting public, because THAT would be interesting.)
"There isn’t a Republican alive with a more rabid, committed base of support."
LOLOLOLOL no.
Who would that be?
i actually kind of misread the quote to mean Cruz has the GOP base locked up in rabid/committed support. He doesn't, at all. Every candidate, D or R or other, has SOME rabid/committed supporters. But enough to win the nomination? Not even close IMO. Ron Paul had rabid, committed supporters. Fat lot of good that did him.
I'm basing this on my FB, which is full of Rs from across the country, but I don't think it's way off since the 538 article says the same thing about Cruz. There doesn't seem to be 1 obvious winning candidate yet. There are plenty of Rs on my feed who think Cruz is a joke and many of them are as "far right" as I am.
Post by tacosforlife on Mar 29, 2015 19:56:49 GMT -5
I think Ted Cruz will make voters think that Scott Walker is moderate/electable, and Walker will be the nominee.
And if you think he won't nominate far right judges, all you have to do is look what he's done.
I will hold my nose and vote for someone whose behavior and tactics I do not like but who will enact policies that align with my views.* I will not hold my nose and vote for someone who will enact policies antithetical to my views.
*Generally, that is. HRC is too cozy with big business for my taste, but it's unlikely that any GOP nominee will be less so.
i actually kind of misread the quote to mean Cruz has the GOP base locked up in rabid/committed support. He doesn't, at all. Every candidate, D or R or other, has SOME rabid/committed supporters. But enough to win the nomination? Not even close IMO. Ron Paul had rabid, committed supporters. Fat lot of good that did him.
I'm basing this on my FB, which is full of Rs from across the country, but I don't think it's way off since the 538 article says the same thing about Cruz. There doesn't seem to be 1 obvious winning candidate yet. There are plenty of Rs on my feed who think Cruz is a joke and many of them are as "far right" as I am.
I think the field is so fractured that Cruz is probably the candidate with the most concentrated support right now. I'm personally not prepared to say he will be the nominee but it kind of wouldn't shock me given the sorry state of the GOP right now.
i actually kind of misread the quote to mean Cruz has the GOP base locked up in rabid/committed support. He doesn't, at all. Every candidate, D or R or other, has SOME rabid/committed supporters. But enough to win the nomination? Not even close IMO. Ron Paul had rabid, committed supporters. Fat lot of good that did him.
I'm basing this on my FB, which is full of Rs from across the country, but I don't think it's way off since the 538 article says the same thing about Cruz. There doesn't seem to be 1 obvious winning candidate yet. There are plenty of Rs on my feed who think Cruz is a joke and many of them are as "far right" as I am.
I think the field is so fractured that Cruz is probably the candidate with the most concentrated support right now. I'm personally not prepared to say he will be the nominee but it kind of wouldn't shock me given the sorry state of the GOP right now.
That's a wee bit premature since the election isn't for another 1.75 years and Cruz is the only serious R candidate who has officially announced.
i actually kind of misread the quote to mean Cruz has the GOP base locked up in rabid/committed support. He doesn't, at all. Every candidate, D or R or other, has SOME rabid/committed supporters. But enough to win the nomination? Not even close IMO. Ron Paul had rabid, committed supporters. Fat lot of good that did him.
I'm basing this on my FB, which is full of Rs from across the country, but I don't think it's way off since the 538 article says the same thing about Cruz. There doesn't seem to be 1 obvious winning candidate yet. There are plenty of Rs on my feed who think Cruz is a joke and many of them are as "far right" as I am.
I think the field is so fractured that Cruz is probably the candidate with the most concentrated support right now. I'm personally not prepared to say he will be the nominee but it kind of wouldn't shock me given the sorry state of the GOP right now.
I agree.
I am confident in my prediction that he will go farther than Rand Paul, which is what matters for purposes of my bet with my friend. And this is all about me.
But in general I think people who are writing him off as a serious contender are making a big mistake. Maybe he won't win, but he is going to shape the primary season and drag the candidates to the far right, not to the middle.
To bring this back to the OP is that ultimately, what makes this HRC thing both so, so horrifyingly scary and so utterly inconsequential is the lack of a serious, strong, and well-functioning opposition party. The Dems weak bench is at least in part due to the fact that they could put up a box of hair in 2016 and it is not crazy to think that to most of the country, that box of hair is still going to look better than the maniacs throwing feces on the right. I hate to be overconfident, but seriously, a platform of stripping millions of health insurance, legalized homophobia, repealing the minimum wage, and vote suppression is just not going to work in 2016 America.
I think the field is so fractured that Cruz is probably the candidate with the most concentrated support right now. I'm personally not prepared to say he will be the nominee but it kind of wouldn't shock me given the sorry state of the GOP right now.
That's a wee bit premature since the election isn't for another 1.75 years and Cruz is the only serious R candidate who has officially announced.
Well I did say right now! Who knows what can happen in the next year or so.
If I had to put money (or a dinner) on it, I'd say Walker or Kasich will be the nominee.
Post by Velar Fricative on Mar 29, 2015 21:11:15 GMT -5
Since we're talking about things that are all about ourselves, I selfishly want Walker to win the nom because then DH will vote D. He's a teacher so he hates Walker more than I do.
I'm with tacosforlife on thinking Walker will get the nom anyway. I could see him getting a lot of money from big business and he'll be considered the electable moderate of the GOP group of contenders, as hilarious as that actually is. The only thing that would throw a wrench in my prediction is if Christie runs.
Post by penguingrrl on Mar 29, 2015 22:16:19 GMT -5
I think Christie and Jeb are going to be the last men standing, not sure which will get the nomination in the end. And I'm not sure which scares me more.
Post by tacosforlife on Mar 30, 2015 5:35:53 GMT -5
Even if the nominee is not Cruz, who are these Republicans who are going to appoint moderate federal judges? Who is the George HW Bush of this field?
I don't think there is a single Republican name that's been uttered in connection with the presidential race who is not going to appoint judges who will further restrict abortion rights, further gut civil rights, and further subjugate individual rights to those of corporations.
I do not want another John Roberts appointed to the bench. Full stop. The ramifications of that are greater and last longer than any single presidential term.