Ten months from now, one of our seventeen presidential contenders in this field of record-breaking depth will ascend a star-studded stage in Cleveland and formally accept the Republican Party’s nomination. With it comes the responsibility of uniting a party, which stands divided in the polls, to mount a vigorous campaign for the very future of our nation.
Daily rises and falls in those polls are to be expected. While these swings tell us something about each candidate, in this deep a field only aggregate data can assess the race as a whole.
At this moment, the tone and direction of this race can be summed up in three simple charts:
Since April, the outsiders have cumulatively surged, based on data drawn from RCP’s average of polls, corrected for undecided voters among the field, and smoothed using a seven-day weighted moving average (WMA).
Non-politicians Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Donald Trump now command support from 46% of the decided electorate. The outsiders’ share rises to 58% when including Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, whose records and platforms both express a deep skepticism towards Washington’s status quo.
The non-politicians now command a staggering 79% of the outsider vote, up 34% on a relative basis since April 1st. While the outsiders command an additional 30% of the decided electorate compared to April 1st, just 0.8% of that growth has been realized by Cruz and Paul. In this environment, outsiders in Washington just can’t keep pace with outsiders to politics as a whole.
Meanwhile, the three mainstream contenders continue to lag, commanding 23.3% of the decided electorate, down 15.4% from April 1st. In that time, the spread between outsiders and the three mainstream contenders has shifted from a 16% deficit to 32% lead in favor of the outsiders.
This stunning 48% swing in the spread reflects a deep frustration within the Republican primary electorate, likely caused by perceptions of the status quo. Governors and senators continue to lag while business leaders and skeptics command a growing share of media attention. 2016 is shaping up to be the year of the outsider, in a race which is currently rewarding candidates able to deliver a reform-oriented message to a skeptical and disaffected electorate.
Donald Trump’s sharp immigration rhetoric, hostility towards political correctness, and natural media savvy have led his surge among voters seeking outsiders, while his personal wealth has drawn in supporters from the ranks of campaign finance skeptics.
Carson and Fiorina continue to gain ground as their campaigns each gain additional exposure among voters currently learning of their backgrounds and platforms for the first time.
Meanwhile, the three leading mainstream contenders face challenges from this environment, and to regain lost ground, they must tap into this current of skepticism and communicate a reform-oriented platform focused on solving those problems currently driving the electorate’s negative perception of business as usual in politics.
Jeb “‘Veto’ Coreleone” Bush is well-known among Florida Republicans for his willingness to push back against tax-and-spend politicians of both parties and take on the institutionalized bureaucracy which depressed student achievement in Florida’s schools, however his centrist platform and stately tone is facing difficulty gaining traction among a conservative base suffering from ongoing Bush fatigue and deep skepticism over his calls for comprehensive immigration reform. While Bush enjoys a sizable fundraising advantage, he’ll need to draw on that war chest to promote his record as Florida’s governor to Republicans elsewhere if he is to regain lost ground in the polls.
Likewise, Scott Walker is well-known for his record of fighting back against business-as-usual in his home state of Wisconsin, most notably through his nationally-publicized reforms of public-sector employee unions, however his campaign is suffering the same communications difficulties as Bush’s, among this field of sixteen challengers all vying to wrestle the microphone away from The Donald in an increasingly Trump-centric media environment.
Marco Rubio is well-known and well-liked among both of the party’s wings, however his status as a well-liked second choice and strategically-valuable youthful Hispanic Republican from the nation’s most populous swing state isn’t enough to secure a position on the ticket higher than VP. To win the top spot, he’ll need to communicate his record and vision for reform, which could prove difficult as his home-state fundraising efforts remain overshadowed by his political mentor, Jeb Bush.
The three mainstream standard bearers face the same challenge: voter frustration with the perceived status quo is amplifying the message of the “outsiders” within the field and choking off the political oxygen usually split among fewer contenders in a traditionally smaller field. To win, they must communicate, and for candidates less willing to attract media notoriety than Trump, that means running solid campaigns which build out grassroots networks in key states, secure valuable state leaders as Walker did with Obenshain in Virginia, and raise the money needed to drive message through paid communications in an environment where slivers of earned media aren’t enough.
Whether this trend will reverse is yet to be seen.
