Why Electability Doesn’t Matter Anymore
It doesn’t matter how good a candidate looks on paper, how ideologically pure they are, or how much experience they have if they can’t get elected. This is one of the most deeply ingrained arguments in the conventional wisdom playbook of politics. If they want to win, the wisdom contends, voters should look at the candidates, determine who is the most electable, and they should nominate that candidate.
The problem with the conventional wisdom, at least this cycle, is that it’s dead wrong.
Nobody cares about electability anymore.
If you actually need proof that nobody cares, just look at the actual contest results so far. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are widely considered the most unelectable of all the candidates who announced for the GOP nomination. Yet they’ve been the two strongest candidates – the only candidates to win more than ten contests each. Cruz has won 11 contests, Trump 22. John Kasich has won 1, which has led to his latest nickname from Trump – 1 for 37 Kasich. Or is it 1 for 38 Kasich? Maybe 1 for 41 Kasich? Or even 1 for 42 Kasich? As Trump spoke yesterday the number of contests Kasich lost kept creeping up. But the actual number is 1 out of 37. Only Trump and Cruz have consistently been able to put together wins this cycle.
That would generally lend them credibility in the electability argument – until you look at their negatives and at their general election match-up polling.
Their general election match-up polling has been horrible. Consistently throughout this cycle, Trump has been getting beaten in head-to-head polling against Hillary Clinton. In dozens of polls, he has never gotten higher than a +5 outlier, and only been tied or higher than Hillary fewer than a half dozen times. Cruz is almost as bad, losing almost as many head-to-head contests against Hillary, with his best being a +7 outlier from January 2016, right after Iowa.
Both Trump and Cruz also remain underwater when it comes to favorability ratings. Trump’s unfavorables have broken records, with one recent poll showing him at an unheard-of 70% unfavorable. The gap between his favorables and unfavorables is consistently in the -30% range. Cruz’s favorability ratings have hovered between 26-37%, with his unfavorables consistently at or around 50% or more. Despite being able to put together wins in GOP nominating contests, both men are deeply disliked by the general electorate.
On the other hand, John Kasich has consistently outpolled Hillary in every match-up since February. Some of those polls have him cresting 51% or more – something neither Trump nor Cruz ever did in head-to-head polls against Clinton. Kasich is the only remaining candidate in the race with a positive favorable/unfavorable rating, his average now being +10 favorable.
Clearly, from a pure electability argument, John Kasich is the best nominee for the GOP – the only one who has consistently outpolled Clinton, and the only one who more people like than dislike. So why is he doing so poorly in these contests? Why can’t he raise money, and why is he lagging so far behind two men who are giving herpes a run for it’s money in the “most hated” category?
The answer is obvious and if you were reading carefully, you already know: nobody cares about the electability argument anymore.
Why? Simply put, we’ve nominated too many “most electable candidates” who have lost, voters are more cynical today than ever before, and there’s a belief that the “electability” argument is only one that matters to DC insiders.
No one can argue against the idea that electability is an overused argument, and it has under-performed in terms of winning general elections. You will hear arguments over who is the most electable in every nominating contest from President to dog catcher. Too many people, however, hear “most electable” and think that means we are sure to win if we nominate that person. That’s obviously not true. Just because someone is “electable” doesn’t mean they will actually get elected. The most common response to the electability argument these days is to bring up Mitt Romney and John McCain. Republican voters, the argument goes, were forced to pick moderate candidates who didn’t represent their values because they were the “most electable” and they still lost. So why care about electability when that doesn’t guarantee wins?
Clearly, that’s not the most logical of arguments, because even the most electable candidate on our side may not be the most electable candidate overall. Nobody was going to beat Barack Obama in 2008, and nobody else in the 2012 field would have come as close to beating him as Romney did. Losing is still losing, however, and many of those voters would have preferred to lose big voting for a candidate they liked and who shared their values than losing closely with someone they didn’t care for. As the twist on the old saying goes, winning isn’t everything but losing is nothing.
That has led to a rise in cynicism, both in our base and among conservative leaning independents. The failure of the GOP to win the last two presidential contests has created a level of cynicism within our base that is usually seen only in independent voters. Independents, who are largely independent because they dislike both parties or because they don’t see any real differences between the candidates of either parties, have long been impervious to the electability argument. Given that Trump’s coalition has brought legions of disaffected-Republicans-turned-Independents back to the GOP fold, it’s not surprising to see their immunity to electability return with them. These are voters who don’t really care who wins the general election, because they think it won’t really make that big a difference anyway. So vote for the guy you think will do the most to shake up the system. Bernie Sanders is benefiting from the Democratic version of these voters. Our failure at winning, and the failure of the GOP leadership in Washington to follow through on the promises they made in order to win control of the House and Senate – promises they knew were impossible when they made them – has only fed into this cynicism.
Finally, there is a perception – and it’s one that is not entirely without merit – that the only winners in these general election contests are DC insiders. Thus, the argument of “who gives us the best chance of winning” is a particularly compelling argument to a certain class of elites, most of whom have nothing in common with the grassroots GOP voter. Winning to the GOP elite means power, jobs, influence and money. Thus, those with the most to gain are those who care the most about who is the most electable – there’s something in it for them if the GOP candidate wins. Those people have no principles, so the argument goes, so they just go for the guy who looks most likely to win so they can cozy up to get a job. Thus, the guy making the electability argument isn’t always making it for the good of the party or Republican values – there’s usually something in it for them. This has led many base GOP voters to not merely ignore the electability argument, but to openly question the motivation of those who make it most loudly.
Regardless of the reasoning, one thing is clear – the GOP nomination in 2016 is likely going to go to someone whom most voters hate. Winning appears to be secondary to sending a message, whether it’s Donald Trump’s message that we don’t win anymore and our government is full of stupid people, or Cruz’s message that all our ills are the result of the Washington Cartel that isn’t interested in governing by conservative principles.
Neither of those messages seem to be that compelling to most Americans.
That’s why the chances of us pulling off a win against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic machine are hovering right around Trump and Cruz’s favorability ratings.
The danger of us losing yet another presidential election is clear – if GOP voters are this cynical now when they’ve been nominating the most electable candidates, what’s going to happen when they go with their hearts instead of their heads and lose just as badly?
I don’t know, but we’re probably going to find out.
