The idea that Trump will crush Hillary in a general election is delusional

And this memo from a Republican pollster shows why the idea of a Trump win is improbable.

Trump fans like to argue that he will expose Hillary and that she will look like an establishment stooge next to his supposedly candid style (to argue that Trump is at all candid is a joke, but that's a topic for another thread), but none of their arguments are based on any credible data. It's just based on a gut feeling and gut feelings are weaksauce in the face of data.

Reasons from the memo that Trump will likely lose to Hillary:

• In a recent CNN poll, 35% of Republican voters said that they would never vote for Trump. I don't expect number will stay that high when he get into the general election, but that is still an incredible number and shows that he would have a very hard time uniting the Republican party.
• 68% of female voters have an unfavorable view of Trump. With devastating adds like this being run by Republicans, don't expect that to change no matter how many times Trump says he cherishes women. Also, even at the worst of times, no Republican has ever polled so badly with women. In a head to head match up with Clinton, Trump loses 64% to 34%. Those numbers are unprecedented.
• Both candidates have problems with Independent voters, but Trump does worse, losing 44% to 48%. Even if he were to win Indies, they wouldn't make up for the gap with women and minority voters.
• Which brings me to my next point. 74% of minority voters have an unfavorable view of Trump; 81% of Latinos have an unfavorable view of him. For context, remember that Republicans' terrible performance with minorities is why Republicans have been routed in the last two Presidential elections. Trump would have to win the white vote by unprecedented margins to make up for this deficit. Establishment Republicans know they have a huge problem with Hispanic voters. This will only get worse with Trump, who wins only 16% of the Hispanic vote against Clinton. Yikes.
• The vast majority of head to head polls show Clinton easily beating Trump. As time goes on, these polls are getting worse for Trump. The latest CNN poll has Trump losing by an 8 point margin, which is huge in a general election.
• While Clinton has extremely high unfavorables, Trumps are even worse. According to the CNN poll, 55% see Clinton unfavorably whereas 60% see Trump unfavorably. Some polls show that number to be even higher. Because of wide name recognition, these unfavorables will be hard to shift.
• 40% of voters say that he is the candidate that they would most dread seeing on TV for 4 years, the highest for any GOP candidate.
• 40% of conservative voters have an unfavorable view of Trump.
• 67% percent of voters think that Trump lacks the appropriate temperament to be an effective President. A certain subsection of the Republican party may like Trump's antics, but most people don't.

To address other arguments that Trump fans bring up:

• They argue that many Bernie supporters will support Trump over Clinton. Yet that number is low enough (at 7%) that, as the article says, Clinton's team is probably not losing any sleep. That figure is not nearly as concerning as the 35% of Repubs that say they won't for Trump.
• They also argue that Republican primaries have had much better turnout than their Democratic counterparts. While this is true, but it's abundantly clear that there is no historical correlation between primary turnout and general election turnout. Before 2008, the year that Democrat's had the highest turnout was in 1998 in which Michael Dukkakis was the Democratic nominee. As most of you know, Dukkakis lost in one of the most lopsided contests in election history. In one of the lowest turnout years for Democrats, Bill Clinton easily won the general election. In short, the turnout argument holds no water. And it can be easily explained: Dem turnout is lower because the race is less suspenseful and Clinton is essentially running as a continuation of Obama's third term. Republicans are more enthusiastic because they are trying to take the White House back and their party is experiencing a potential political realignment.
• Trump fans claim that he will make states that usually go Democratic competitive as well as win rust-belt states like Pennsylvania. The data does not support this conclusion. In head to head polls, Trump gets blown out in New York, New Jersey, and loses badly in Michigan. While the margins are much closer in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, Clinton still wins those states convincingly.
• Trump fans claim that his coalition will be the stuff of legend. Yet he consistently fails to secure a majority of the vote. In fact, RedState.com has made an extremely compelling argument that Trump is the weakest front runner in Republican history. Democrats will likely go into the general election as a more unified party. When has a candidate that divides the party ever been a recipe for electoral success?

Basically, the whole "Trump will crush" narrative is difficult to believe when his fundamentals are so bad.

Embedded version of the attack ad that highlights Trump's women problem:

Maybe he'll make up for his deficit with women with Gamergate votes lol.

I wasn't aware anyone thought he'd be able to beat Hillary or Bernie in the general.

There's are tons of Trump fans---and some on this site---that think that he'll destroy Hillary. Because reasons. Even some pundits have been peddling some of the pro-Trump talking points that I rebutted in the OP.

I'd vote for a steaming pile of dog shit over Hillary.

1. Anyone who follows polls before things are finalized shouldn't have any part following politics.

2. So far we know that Trump has the highest number of independent and Democrat voters since Reagan.

3. Ohio is still a Republican state.

I don't understand how anyone thinks Trump has a chance. The GOP has seen this for a while but they waited too long to try and stop him from taking the primaries.

He will get the nom and get destroyed in the general. He is seen as an absolute joke outside of the dumb Republican base and he has said way too much already to pull any sort of minority vote ESPECIALLY the latino vote which has been the largest growing voting pooulation in the country for a minute now.

Well, to be fair all Trump needs is 70% of the white male voters to win. Which may seem impossible but then again that was also said by the people who a few months ago saw Trump as a joke and would not stand a chance in the republican nomination race.

Im sure there is a few democratic men who would prefer Trump over Hillary.

You're in luck. The Republican party is offering up several of those for you to choose from.

Yeah I mean when has statistics ever been useful for anything.

You thinking that the GOP really means they will never vote for him is your problem. No matter what they say now there is no way the GOP sits around with their "pride" and lets Hillary win the GE and the dems take the supreme court without a fight. I guarantee to you the party will rally around Trump and you add the registered Republican votes + all the millions of new voters and independents + dems that Trump has lured in this cycle and Trump absolutely can beat Hillary.

Ohio is a swing state. It went for Obama twice. Also, if you're going to try to debate, please provide links and data.

So no data-based arguments? Just your "guarantees" AKA yours assumptions. Very weak.

Where is your data showing that these alleged Trump dems will be in any way decisive? Where is your data showing that trump wins independents?

There's no evidence that Trump is going to pull 70% of white men. If that was going to happen, his numbers in the head to heads would be better.

And polls are far better than the nothing that he provided.

Right now there are many people who are running for office. On the Republican side there are three and on the Democrats side there are two.

Now only one of them can run for either party, this may be why you answered the way you did. You may think that many people can be on the final ballot for each party and that's not how the system works in the United States of America.

When all is said and done only one person per party can be the candidate.

That means right now all Republican vs Democrat polls are wrong, and no one is going to use a poll that's wrong, correct?

That is why anyone following polls before things are finalized on both sides (getting down to one candidate each like I said earlier) shouldn't be following politics because they don't understand it.

Haha. I've seen many grasping-for-straws arguments in order to dismiss polls, but this one is truly novel. The amount of contenders in the Republican party has absolutely nothing to do with head to head general election polls.

Didn't Hilary leak confidential information awhile back?

I explained it above

No, you didn't. You have no idea what you're talking about and are way out of your depth. Head to head match ups are only between two candidates. They are asking, "If the general election were between Hillary and Trump, who would you vote for?" The other candidates are irrelevant.

Thread is confirming that Trump voters are low info.

Why are you ignoring the millions of new voters on the Republican side that Trump has brought in for the primaries who were either independent or didn't vote during the last cycle?

Dems are doing exactly what the GOP did which is underestimate Trump.

I don't know. A lot of the same people were saying the same thing about Trump's chance of winning the primary, but here we are. For his part, Trump has already started shifting toward the middle as his spot in the general election move closer to reality. We don't want to underestimate voters short term memory or gullibility. I'm already seeing tons of revisionist claims on this board regarding Trumps positions; some are making the claim that Trump has ALWAYS been supportive of immigrants. This would be hilarious if it's not extremely scary and sad at the same time.

I'm not ignoring them. Trump's base of support is priced into his polling.

I notice that you didn't answer my questions.

I'm not underestimating him. It's possible for him to win, but there's simply no evidence that he will crush Hillary and the data indicates that his fundamentals are weak.

The people who were saying Trump couldn't win the GOP nomination were ignoring the data tho. To believe that Trump had no chance at winning the nom, you had to ignore all the polling.

@GreySeal9:

I'll admit it. I used to follow all this stuff but it's just so depressing so I no longer bother. Politics should not be a career.

What I will say is that what people say about trump doesn't seem to bother me. In fact, it seems logical, as far as the immigration issue is concerned. The US is in such bad shape that at some point some means of gradually fixing our own country needs to take place.

He doesn't have to "crush" her. He just has to win. Anyone who believes he will crush her and it won't be close are just hyperbolic. But if he can unite the right before the GE votes are cast he can absolutely edge out a win.

Well, if he wins the Republican nomination, that already gives him more than a small chance to win, but he goes into the election with extreme weaknesses that even losing Republican candidates like Romney and McCain didn't have. Prediction markets put Clinton's chances somewhere between 60-70% for a reason.

it still utterly astounds me that that GOP, having had to deal with obama for 7 full years now, having had PLENTY of time to groom a worthy candidate to challenge his dictatorial, incompetent, feckless ways, and they best they could come up with is donald trump

way to go guys, way to go.

This is why politics can be so irritating to discuss. It's one thing to support a candidate but it is ridiculous that people cant support someone without convincing themselves that they will crush the competition. I support Bernie Sanders but never thought for a second he would win. Trump supporters are not in touch with reality if they think he'll crush Hillary. I don't discount anything but it is clearly unlikely. Trump has both democrats and republicans in large numbers against him.

The bottom line is that Trump will get slaughtered by the two most important voting demographics: women and minorities. The only Republican I could see doing well is Kasich because he's a moderate.

To add insult to injury, a Tea Party member just took the Speaker of the House position left vacant by Boehner.

If anyone thinks that conservatives are a joke, shouldn't be taken seriously, or don't stand a chance...you're wrong.

This is no joke: there are enough dumb, spiteful people out there, and even if they don't support Trump, they just don't want Hilary to win and will vote for Trump any way.

Like you, I am astounded by how infested the GOP is with super conservatives and fools. Whatever happened to the Bush Sr.'s and the Reagans; I still think they were bad presidents, but they were gods compared to every GOP member that's run for the past decade.

What about McCain? He's old, but who cares lets get him out there. I take back all the nasty things I said, John, please run again!

The polls this election don't mean shit. Hillary was 20 percent above Bernie in Michigan and look how that turned out.

There was not enough historical data that the Michigan primary polls could use to predict the winner. The last dem primary before the 2016 one in Michigan was the 2008 one were it was Hilary Clinton vs uncontested.

The general wisdom by most people including the republican elite from what I heard is that trump will be destroyed in the general by Hilary even if he tries to move to the center. What he has said and done in the republican primary and in the past will probably come back to haunt him in the GE.He has way more baggage then even Hilary. He will most likely give the democrats the senate and maybe the house(but the dems are most likely going to get some seats in the House if he is the republican nominee) and hurt the republicans in the long term probably. There is a tiny chance for him to beat Hilary in the GE but it is very very unlikely. He is taking the republicans southern strategy to the extreme in the primary and from what we know that doesn't work to well in the GE anymore. If he is the republican nominee I predict that Hilary will get over 370EV and maybe even 400EV.

You don't understand basic American politics, what country are you from because you have been grossly misinformed.

The reason polls don't matter is because more than one candidate is currently in the race for each party. Now for some reason you think that it doesn't matter as long as it's asked "which one of the two out of the many that are running".

That's the incorrect way of doing it and the results will always be wrong.

Now currently in the United States the Democrats have one person affiliated with the party fully and one that is on the outside. The Republicans have one that is affiliated with the party completely, one that is on the fringe, and one that is completely outside.

Now depending on how the votes fall for candidates that will color how they will vote for the remaining candidates. There is also the fact that the Republican party has final say who their candidate will be which could also sway voters.

I don't mean to trivialize the media in your country but they have done a very poor job of reporting on American politics and in turn have done you a disservice when it comes to discussing them.

What I just explained are literally the most basic of things going on right now and the outlets you follow have failed to cover any of them.

I find it all rather amusing really....

Uh dude you are misunderstanding what he said. Head to head means just between the two of them. Not with other candidates.

While trump would have a noticeable disadvantage against Hillary. Clinton's victory isnt guaranteed either.

Polls while a good way to get a guess, is by no means a guarantee. Bernie Sanders completely surpassed expectations in Michigan, and if its a trump vs hillary general. Trump will attempt to discredit and assassinate Hillary Clinton's character, just like he did with the other republicans. And when it comes the the act of character assassination, He wont have a difficult time doing that against Hillary. And if Trump plays his cards right (and he probably would, seeing as he is an expert manipulator), he could completely tarnish what is left of Hillary's reputation.

Of course, I am not saying Trump will win. But to make conclusions as of now is redicilous.

Anyone saying that Trump will crush Hillary or that Hillary will crush Trump, and are NOT tounge in cheek are out of their minds.

True, but that is what he would need to do if he has to have any chance of winning.

Not that i am complaining , as long as Clinton wins everything will be fine.

Trump will not crush Hillary. However, I believe it's going to be closer than people believe. There is a weird movement right now with Bernie voters. Some are claiming if he doesn't get the nod they will vote Trump. I find that hilarious.

If he tries to do it like that one ad he posted about Hilary recently he's just going to scare female voters into voting for Hilary. People have data to state that it is likely that Hilary will destroy trump in GE. He really does not have the demographs that could make this a close race in the GE. If the republicans go against him in the GE also he may even struggle a lot harder to beat Hilary.

Brogressives. Brogressives never change.

I see someone is using the Trump Quote addon :P

Yeah, the chances of Hillary winning the GE against trump are definately higher than 50%. But, I highly doubt the majority of republicans wont go against Trump no matter what. Just recently Ted Cruz said he would support Trump no matter what (unless he shot a guy). And the republicans have had a history of supporting liberal causes right up until the liberals and democrats do them.

Me and a friend made a joke a while back about conservatives liking liberal positions as long as they dont have the liberal association.

Did his attack ad scare them? Whoopsies. Maybe Trump was more incompetent in his ad hominems than I expected.

Are you saying that Jacanuck and Storm_Marine are delusional?

Trump polls terribly with women and anyone who isn't 'white'. I hate to say 'never', so I"ll state that its highly unlikely that Trump could ever win the general election.

Obviously you are right. ...I agree, and I will be voting for her.

...and I am a white man

Yeah...

If this is anything to go by. I guess the point of Trump's character assassinations is null and void. That was the most pathetic thing I have seen in my entire life.

Not only will Trump win.. he will utterly destroy the Clinton brand.

Just type "Trump & the Clintons" into google. Look at all the pictures of them together happily, playing golf, at various parties.

As stated previously Trump is acting like a buffoon to make her look better. He has no intention of being president.

So sayeth Romney, circa 2012.

There is no misunderstanding, because of the American political process there are events which color whom would vote for whom if it got to that point.

To ask it now and expect it to be accurate is foolhardy, it will be wrong.

Trump's going to win anyways. The arguing is pointless.