Reuters/Ipsos poll: Trump didn't lose the debate, but Bush lost the GOP base.

[maxomai]

We have the first scientific poll results after the Republican debate. And they're unsettling.

Reuters/Ipsos Poll (PDF) conducted August 6 (post-debate)-10, 2015. (For comparison, use these Ipsos numbers (PDF) sampled Aug 1-5.)

Among Republicans and Independents Both (pre-debate poll in parentheses):
Trump 21 (23)
Bush 11 (12)
Rubio 6 (5)
The rest less than or equal to 5 (8)
MOE 4.4 (3.5)

Among Republicans alone:
Trump 24 (24)
Bush 12 (16)
Rubio 8 (4)
Huckabee 8 (5)
Carson 8 (5)
Walker 7 (12)
Fiorina 6 (1)
The rest le 5 (le 7)
MOE 6.7 (6.0)

Among Independents alone:
Bush 13 (7)
Trump 12 (18)
Paul 9 (5)
Christie 9 (9)
Rubio 7 (4)
The rest le 5 (le 5)
MOE 10.5 (9.5)

There is good news and bad news here for the Republican establishment. The good news is that their annointed candidate, Jeb Bush, has gained support among independents. The bad news is that Trump's crass behavior and pathetic closing statement at last week's debate appears to have hardly dented his numbers with the Republican base, even as he apparently has alienated Republican-leaning independents. The base loves Trump, and will keep loving him as he decimates the GOP's appeal to anyone not in the base. Meanwhile, Jeb Bush has lost support among the Republican base. This puts the GOP in an unenviable position. The GOP is used to mollifying moderates and cranking their base; with Jeb as the candidate, they may very well have to mollify their base and try to crank moderates. Except that they don't have the right numbers of either to do that.

Reuters/Ipsos also polled head-to-head match-ups of Hillary Clinton against several Republican candidates, and she leads all of them by double digits:

MOE 4.4

Clinton 41
Bush 29

Clinton 44
Walker 24

Clinton 42
Christie 25

Clinton 44
Carson 24

Clinton 41
Cruz 27

Clinton 41
Rubio 28

Clinton 43
Trump 29

I'm not happy with the MOEs on this poll, and Ipsos Online got a C+ in FiveThirtyEight's pollster ratings. But, their polls also lean Republican, and this poll is consistent with other polls we've seen that give Clinton a commanding lead.

Comments

What about the incipient SanderStorm?

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

After last night, I would think a lot of people would be asking, how does Bernie stand up against the GOP. Frankly while Hillary is quite the juggernaut, I dislike the ever so convienient "Oh Bernie can't win so we're not going to even bother with him" trend I see so much off.

So many people thought Hillary was a lock back in 2008 and Obama won by actually (gasp!) pandering to the Dem base. Something Bernie is doing. It seems to me that if Obama can win twice, then Bernie can do it as well by continuing to do what he's doing and continuing to tell the Dem base what they want to here.

So many were disillusioned with not getting Unicorns and Rainbows with Mr. "Hope" Obama and Hillary is already seen by many as part of the same corporate machine that fuels the GOP. So it comes down to something I've seen a lot in the analysis of elections. If Democrats vote, they win. They have the numbers on their side and every day that number grows as the GOP base shrinks. So to me the question isn't which GOP candidate is going to spout off whatever batshit-insane comment to please the GOP base but can Hillary fight off a sustained progressive attack on the Dem base from Bernie?

You can't filled the Moda Center and be cast off as "second tier" in my book.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I recently read an OpEd piece by Thomas Friedman commenting about some other center-right pundits comment that he hopes Trump gets the GOP nomination because he'll lose astoundingly badly and this will (from their PoV) hopefully sufficiently discredit the tea-bagger right to let the center-right become more dominant and the GOP stop stunts like shutting down the government. Friedman basically agreed with this analysis. The GOP was a mess in 2012, but it seems to be even more of a mess today, which is no small feat.

At this point the most likely option looks to be Trump running as an independent, and thus killing the GOP's already remote chance of a win, with the (quite unlikely, but shockingly possible) alternative that he'll actually be the nominee and will almost certainly not merely lose badly, but give Clinton exceptionally long coat-tails for Congress.

Re: What about the incipient SanderStorm?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

"Oh Bernie can't win so we're not going to even bother with him"

That's my PoV and I'm pretty comfortable with it - Like Sanders, I'm a socialist, but you don't win a presidential election by appealing to either the far left or the far right - attempts to do the second in the primaries are part of what killed any chance Mitt Romney had of becoming president. I'd most like seeing Sanders win (the "mostly" is because his views of immigration are pretty darn troubling), but I'd vastly prefer Warren. However, the US isn't going to vote in a socialist or even a hardcore progressive like Warren as President. Sanders would end up with fervent support by the left-most half of the Democrats and not many other people.