The General Election Begins

With the remaining Republican candidates ceding the field to Donald Trump, the general election begins now. As the protagonists of both parties gear up for battle, the lay of the land gives Republicans cause for despair.

First, the Republican donors dislike Donald Trump greatly. Some of them prefer Hillary Clinton. Though they may disagree with Clinton on policy, they find her less erratic. Others find the odds for Trump’s success impossible. Consequently, the donors are not quite willing to break out their checkbooks.

Trump has no fundraising apparatus for now. The joint fundraising committees that Mitt Romney relied on to fund him between the primaries and convention have not been set up. Because Trump is not the Republican nominee until the Republican convention, the Republican National Committee cannot help him. He is technically still just one of several candidates. Meanwhile, one Democratic Super PAC plans to spend $20 million against Trump in the month of June alone. They will wait until June 8, the day after the last Republican primary, just in case their attacks caused Republicans to get cold feet.

Second, about those cold feet, 20 percent of Republicans say they will not vote for Donald Trump in the general election. Forty-two percent of Republicans say they have a negative opinion of Donald Trump. Even if all those Republicans were to vote for Donald Trump, it seems unlikely he could win more states than Mitt Romney.

The odds of Trump even winning the states Romney won are in doubt. Polling shows Trump as the Republican nominee puts Mississippi in play, sends Arizona to the Democrats, and even Utah, a state that has not voted for a Democrat in 100 years, would lean toward Hillary Clinton.

Sixty percent of voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared to only 37 percent who have an unfavorable view of Clinton. Seventy percent of women have an unfavorable view of Trump with 52 percent of women having a very unfavorable view of him. Over 85 percent of Hispanic voters have an unfavorable view of Trump.

The reality is the only group of people in the United States who view Trump favorably are white men with no more than a high school degree. Every other group, including white voters overall, have a more unfavorable than favorable view of Trump before Democrats have even spent the first dime against him.

Third, Democrats have a most unusual weapon to use against Trump — the words of his Republican opponents. Almost every single Republican opponent to Trump, during the primary campaign, went on record saying Trump was not just unqualified to be president, but unfit to be anywhere near the nuclear button. Already Clinton is using those sound bites.

Beyond those sound bites, while Republicans were attacking Trump for his short fingers, Democrats were amassing opposition research not yet seen. More than 80 percent of the attacks they will throw at Trump will be new and in his own words.

Trump’s supporters, at the start of this general election, find themselves in an unusual position. Those of us who were wrong about Trump’s rise and sustainability, myself included, had to ignore or dismiss all the polls. All the polls were right.

The very same polls that showed Trump winning as he did have shown him losing to Clinton badly. Trump supporters who championed the polling since last July must now dismiss it as wrong. Welcome to the general election.

This story was originally published May 5, 2016 at 10:00 PM with the headline "The General Election Begins."