Yesterday the GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini sent out 19 successive tweets sharing his assessment of the Republican race so far. I hope someone will Storify them so you can all easily read them, but until then, follow the link above. His basic argument is that the GOP race is settling into a pattern. Trump has a hard core of supporters nationally, but he can’t seem to grow beyond it. They are, however, unshakable in their support of him:
11/ As we move to a three man race, Trump will have 40, Cruz will have 30, establishment candidate will have 30 *nationally*
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 17, 2016
12/ This puts Trump in pole position. Winnowing to 3 won’t be enough. Field will need to winnow to 2 to defeat Trump under current dynamic — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 17, 2016
13/ It seems like we have a 50/50 shot if the field winnows to two, with very little margin for error
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 17, 2016
“We,” of course, refers to the GOP Establishment. Ruffini emphasizes that there is likely no way to peel Trump voters away from their man. Therefore:
18/ Strategy is now one of containment. Of keeping the cancer from reaching 45%, or God forbid, 50% — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 17, 2016
19/ And that means immunizing/inoculating any reasonable people who still may be left out there.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 17, 2016
Which, I suppose, means a brokered Republican convention. Mayhem. If Trump is denied the nomination, it’s hard to see his people accepting that. It’s hard to see him accepting it. I would put money on a third-party run, and that probably means a Hillary Clinton presidency … unless Trump rallies enough voters to give him a winning plurality. People forget that Bill Clinton won his first term without a majority, but because he was the top vote-getter in a three-man field (Bush, Clinton, and Perot, whose 19 percent denied either opponent an outright win in the popular vote). Hard to see how Trump would pull that off, but if he could win over enough disaffected working-class Democrats, he might. Here’s something interesting about Ruffini’s analysis. Two years ago, he tweeted a similar series of posts talking about how, in his view, conservative institutions are broken. Toward the end, he says:
Also, changing things will require electing someone who doesn’t give a f— about existing stakeholders and goes their own direction.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 4, 2014
Donald Trump is not the change agent Republicans like Ruffini wanted, but he’s the change agent they’ve got.