It seems to me like the main interesting thing Trump did was win the primary, and his tactics seemed designed to galvanize strong supporters, not win over the median Republican voter. I think the general election very closely followed party affiliation, which suggests that most voters just aren’t that sensitive to the details of who’s their party’s candidate and vote the party line.
But even under the median voter theorem you only need slightly more than 50% of voters to like you just a little more than the alternatives, and the intensity of opposition doesn’t matter much.
Even so, I agree Trump was not a straightforward example. Oops!
There were at the time plenty of people who predicted that even if Trump would win the primary he surely wouldn’t win the general selection. The fact that he did seems to be more obvious in hindsight.
It seems to me like the main interesting thing Trump did was win the primary, and his tactics seemed designed to galvanize strong supporters, not win over the median Republican voter. I think the general election very closely followed party affiliation, which suggests that most voters just aren’t that sensitive to the details of who’s their party’s candidate and vote the party line.
But even under the median voter theorem you only need slightly more than 50% of voters to like you just a little more than the alternatives, and the intensity of opposition doesn’t matter much.
Even so, I agree Trump was not a straightforward example. Oops!
There were at the time plenty of people who predicted that even if Trump would win the primary he surely wouldn’t win the general selection. The fact that he did seems to be more obvious in hindsight.