Irresistible force meets immovable object.
The compelling force is a sense of dissatisfaction with the way things have gone in this juvenile century. Americans are dissatisfied with a sluggish economy that has sunk into a deep recession and with a foreign policy that has clearly yielded disappointing results.
A consistent goal is the intense partisan polarization of American voters, who have cast nearly equal percentages of their votes for each political party in presidential and congressional elections for the past two decades, with the exception of a surge in Republican support in 2006 and 2008.
The irresistible force of discontent was evident in this year’s primaries. Donald Trump, with 41 percent of the vote, won the Republican nomination. Bernie Sanders, with 42 percent of the vote, moved the Democratic Party’s agenda significantly to the left.
A Trump victory increases the likelihood that the immovable object will shift — i.e., the party alignments will change. That is certainly indicated by the polls in March and April, which showed him trailing Hillary Clinton by 50 to 39 percent.
Trump’s Republican opponents have accused him of a landslide defeat similar to those in 1964 and 1972, when Barry Goldwater and George McGovern each won 38 percent of the vote.
They were particularly concerned about the impact of the decision on the Senate races, which they were defending in seven states that Barack Obama had won in 2012. Obama had won all but one of those states by relatively compact margins, but they feared that in an era of run-off voting, a delicate presidential candidate would lead to a defeat for the lower-tier Republicans.
The claim about cross-party voting is true. Only 26 of 435 congressional districts voted for a single party’s presidential candidate and a second party’s House candidate in 2012—the fewest since 1920.
It’s not obvious that voters have lost the ability to divide their lists. Perhaps they simply didn’t see the need in years when presidential candidates and congressional candidates were closely aligned. Given Trump’s heterodox and rapidly changing platform, this year may be different.
That’s consistent with Senate primary season polls in targeted states, where the numbers are roughly in line with prevailing partisan patterns. Republican candidates could suffer if Trump depresses Republican turnout. But as he correctly notes, turnout in Republican presidential primaries has been up this year, while turnout in Democratic primaries has been down, down since 2008.
Meanwhile, some recent polls suggest that Republican voters are coalescing around Trump. Quinnipiac predicts he will do as well or better than Clinton in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, key states without which Barack Obama would have been defeated in 2012.
National polls from Reuters/Ipsos and Public Policy Polling show roughly equal shares of Republicans supporting Trump and Democrats supporting Clinton, although Clinton’s vote may raise as Bernie Sanders ends his campaign. Still, these are signs that Trump is consolidating GOP voters, perhaps more effectively than the GOP elite.
Moreover, polls conducted after Trump won six primaries by more than 50 percent in the Northeast predict a tight race in the general election, with Clinton leading by an average of 47 to 41 percent.
It could be argued that these are disappointing numbers for both candidates. The high-profile Clinton is running behind Barack Obama with a 51 percent majority, and clearly not benefiting from the recent compact but possibly critical raise in Obama’s job approval rating (from 46 percent in January to 49 percent in April). And the high-profile Trump is running well below 46 percent, the lowest for a major-party candidate since 2000.
I noticed something else in the latest polls that may be significant: the number of undecided voters seems to be increasing, not decreasing, as it usually does after candidates are elected.
This may be due to cross-pressure. Most voters have negative feelings about both candidates, and perhaps a record share, about 25 percent, have negative feelings about both. Clearly, some voters are having trouble deciding which repulsive candidate to vote for.
That’s just one question that remains to be decided. Another is turnout. Will wealthy suburbanites outraged by Trump or juvenile people unenchanted by Clinton bother to vote?
So far, the irresistible force doesn’t seem to be moving the immovable object as far as many people expected. But it’s too early to say it won’t.
