The losing faction of elected Republicans who wanted Jeb Bush as their candidate but who would have settled for Marco Rubio rather than Donald Trump have engaged in quite a bit of hyperbole as they claim Trump must unify the party. It's pure propaganda by a weak holdout faction led by Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, a guy who looks to be in a fight for his political career against primary challenger Paul Nehlen.
There is not any need to unify anything. Trump does not need to unify the party in spite of the rhetoric by sore losers. Ryan and his gang need to stop holding out or resign from their jobs.
Trump is not going for elected politicians. Trump is going for voters. Voters are not in the party. Voters are registered to all kinds of parties and most have no party affiliation.
Trump has one task ahead of himself — unifying a coalition of voters mostly from the independent ranks with some Democrats and merely enough Republicans.
Victory resides with the independents and only enough Republicans. Victory can not be had by Trump even if he were to get 100% of the Republicans as long as Trump fails to get enough independents.
Here is the back of the napkin math that reveals what Trump must do.
First, here are the facts:
- 43% of Americans are independents
- 30% are registered Dems
- 26% are registered Republicans
- Trump roughly has 40% of those registered Republicans
Here are various scenarios of the independent vote Trump would need to win assuming Trump would win registered Dems under three scenarios: 5% of the Dem vote, 10% of the Dem vote, 15% of the Dem vote,
Now if, we were to look at it a bit differently. What if Trump were to get a known percent of the independent vote, what percent of the Republicans would Trump need win?
In any scenario where the percentage exceeds 100%, Trump could not win.
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