Trump abruptly withdraws from Fox debate in Iowa

You're the statistics guru so know more about this than I ever will but I don't think it will be Cruz either. The larger moderate GOP base will rally around a more viable candidate as others drop off. I think it'll be Rubio.

 

I agree with your comment about Trump's petulance. He is a spoiled child, and that temperment is not suited to leadership in a democracy.

However, to call the Democratic debates love fests is to miss the point that these things are not supposed to be the food fights that cable TV has turned them into.

When you lower a presidential debate to game show level, you wind up with game show level candidates.

Which is where we are with Trump. He belongs on his own game show, not on a presidential podium.

 

It's hard to say. One of the things that makes Trump look larger than life is the fact that so many of the rest of them are still hanging on, hoping that the RNC will rally itself and finally take control of its primary process.

If they don't boot Rience Preibus out after this cycle, they ought to hang him. He's done irrepairable damage to the GOP.

Dispite all the noise, Trump still has at most 40% of half of the country.

 

We'll see.

I still believe that Trump's lack of any real campaign organization will be a factor.

We'll know for sure in two weeks, and definantely by the SC primary.

At this point in the primary process, the media always appears to be more important than it really is.

 

It's not even a game show. Think trash talk show - Jerry Springer.

 

He has changed his position on many major issues just in the last three years. And yes, people have a right to be flip-floppers.

 

Mornin Pero If Trump boycotts the Debate. This time I think he will feel the pain.

Already, Cruz has challenged Trump to a one on one and already is hammering on him for being afraid of Kelly.

 

He will definitely be on Twitter.....he now is saying he will hold some event in Iowa to make up for it. Then deflected with he will do it to get up money for some Vets.

 

I thought republicans ran on Creating Job Jobs Jobs.... not killing Jobs jobs Jobs

 

I don't think Fox is for Bush.....have they endorsed him? Establishment is getting behind Rubio. Only way they jump for Bush is if all other Moderates are out.

 

It is a combination. With the many candidates it is like a reality show where people are voted home on a regular basis. Jerry Springer trash talk during the debates to keep the topics to the personal level and from real issues. Add a bit of foreign policy and immigrant hating and you have a bit of a travel show like an Idiot Abroad. Last you have the sports side with the many polls and fight night presentation.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump shows up for the debate. For him it is a win. Time will be spent on more trash talk and he has the ability to win there with the Republican base as he has shown.

The Republicans need to cut the field to 3 candidates and hope that Trump does not pick up too much more than 30%. Will the party be able to do so is the question?

 

I liked Cruz and have always said he is my second choice. If he beats this horse, he'll be dead to me. He needs to stay above the fray and just sit down and shut up.

Not to mention, can you imagine Cruz being happy about a debate with the likes of, oh, say, Maddow, Matthews, and Soros being mods?

Same difference.

Trump's numbers will soar and this will be the nail in the coffin for Fox. They will have no choice but to turn left, which fork in the road they already started to take.

I would bet my last $ that Trump is nowhere near afraid of silly little Megyn Kelly. Professional moderators don't start out debates by doing what she did at the first debate. It was ugly and uncalled for. Nobody has ever been able to prove that Trump dislikes or disrespects women; quite the opposite, in fact. Having disdain and distaste for one slob doesn't indicate a hatred for the entire species. Not to mention, as I recall, the slob started the first little dustup years ago. Trump did what Trump does. He reacted. In a way everybody on Planet Earth agrees with and was thinking.

 

same for me. i really wanna see what will happen.

Personally i want trump to make this an issue about the networks not donating proceeds to charities.

 

I love stats, especially electoral stats, it's really my thing outside of my real profession, but in this year, I would say that at least for now, all bets are off, because the Trump factor is just so unbelievably, uh, unpredictable and bizarre.

What I do know for a fact is that it has been a long time since one GOPer was so far in front of the ratpack for such a long time. Being between 30-40% in GOP polling, with so many others still in the equation, is, for all intents and purposes, much like being well over the 50% mark in a two-man race.

I will clarify that with some stark examples:

In 2008, in a pretty much two-man race, Clinton beat Obama in the state of Ohio by +8.95% (Trump is beating the rest of the GOPers by considerably more than +8.95% in most of the state polling, forget Iowa). On primary night 2008, Clinton won 83 of Ohio's 88 counties and won in every single congressional district. And that was with 'just' +8.95, which is just a hair shy of official "landslide" designation, which is considered by practically every electoral statistician to be circa +10 and more. Since Ohio was and still is a WTA state on the GOP side but a proportional state on the Democratic side, the results netted Clinton 74 delegates, while Obama got 67 delegates (in spite of only winning 5 counties, zero congressional districts and losing by 8.95 points) and 21 delegates were, at least at that time, unallocated. Therefore, a margin-spread of +8.95 brought her a margin spread of only +4.3 among delegates. Obama soundly lost Ohio to her and yet, got a bevy of delegates. But that won't be the case with Trump. If he wins Ohio, even by +1, he will get all of Ohio's delegates.

To contrast, in 2008, John McCain just barely won the Missouri primary, by +0.42% (razor thin margin), but won all 58 of Missouri's delegates immediately.

This is why, in an almost 10-man race, being at 30% is an almost godly position to be in. And Trump is in a considerably higher position right now than Mitt Romney was 4 years ago. Four years ago, Mitt Romney will still mired at an aggregate of 23%.

Also, in states that do proportional, but by CD (sometimes, the formula is quite complex, as in the case of Tennessee), a +15 in a state means that it is extremely likely that the candidate winning by +15 is likely to sweep all of the CD's and therefore pick up the lion's share of delegates, even if he won with 'only' 30%. This is why, so long as the GOP field is so spread-out, Trump has a clearer path to the nomination than our Republican friends may want to admit. Divide and conquer, mathematically speaking.

Now, if after Iowa, let's say that Bush drops out first and decides to endorse Rubio; this could give Rubio about 6% more and put him in a second-place tie with Cruz, which, in proportional states, will be of a help to him, but in WTA states, means nothing.

I also want to note that, while Carson's numbers have generally slid downward, he still does occaisionally appear in double digits, which tells me that there is a GOP contingency out there that really likes Dr. Carson and has no intention of backing down. But I suspect that, were he to exit the race, Ted Cruz would immediately profit from this move. Carson also appeals to Evangelicals.

Jim Gilmore is long out of this race, only, he still doesn't have the decency to pull out. Jim who?

Santorum is completely broke. He will exit shortly after Iowa and his sparse supporters will likely go to Cruz. Rick who?

Rand Paul is a Libertarian, through and through. His followers will go over to: no one. Libertarians tend to stay home on election night if a true Libertarian is not on the ballot. Or, they do the write- in thing. See: Montana, 2008 presidential election, Obama vs. McCain.

Carly Fiorina is auditioning for the VP slot, which she is unlikely to get. Trump cannot work well with women, nor does he respect women, so Fiorina is wasting her time. Carly who?

Which leaves us with Christie, Kasich and Huckabee.

Kasich is sometimes placing second in New Hampshire.
Rubio is currently on top in Minnesota - an interesting new development. Fascinating.

As long as Kasich is getting some delegates, I am pretty sure he goes on to at least March 15th. Theoretically, and I mean, only theoretically, if the field stays crowded enough and Kasich can get Trump under 25% in Ohio, Kasich could be a 'one-note Johnny' and win Ohio and all of it's delegates. This has happened in Ohio's electoral primary history on the GOP side a number of times: Taft and Bricker in the late 1940's and early 1950's, for instance. And for this reason, I don't rule out Kasich all too soon.

Huckabee could be more dangerous to Trump than he realizes, for if there was ever a GOP candidate who could form a 3rd party - splinter party, in this case, a "Christian Party" (something Huckabee has already mulled about doing), it would be Huckabee. And since I am pretty sure that Huckabee in no way sees Trump as a 'true' Christian, I could see this scenario as a real possibility.

Right now, there are three things that are statistically verifiable vis-a-vis the 2016 GOP field:

1.) Trump is solidily in the lead nationally.
2.) Trump is solidly leading in NH and tied in IA.
3.) Trump is solidly leading in most state polling, except Texas (where he is losing badly to Cruz), California (slightly behind Cruz) and Minnesota (behind Rubio).

Anything can happen and I am going to very much enjoy watching how the other side figures out their nominee this time.

But statistically, if Trump walks away with all thee big WTA states on March 15th (Florida, Ohio and Missouri, together worth 213 delegates) and one of the big proportional states (Illinois, North Carolina - and currently, he is leading in both) and the 6 delegates from the N. Marianas Islands (never polled, no idea), Trump could easily walk away with 300 of 353 delegates in one day.


Two weeks earlier, on March 1, 2016, 588 delegates will be up for grabs and 7 of the 12 states holding primaries on that day are Southern states (including Texas, where Cruz is likely to get at least 100 delegates, if current polling trends continue), but those are all proportional races. So, in most cases there is a 10% hurdle; sometimes a 5% hurdle, sometimes, 20%, but this means that the 'small fry' will get no delegates and the race will be reculated (by each state's rules, of course) for those who are over the hurdle, but it is possible that Trump gets no more than 200 out of 588 delegates on that day, but 300 of 350 delegates just two weeks later, which will get him a long, long way to the nomination.

My one prediction, and I am sticking with it, is that Bush will pull out earlier than later. In a number of polls, he is now at 2%. In one, he came in at 1%. His backers are drying up and after he gets no delegates out of Iowa and will be crushed in New Hampshire, I wager very strongly that the Bush family will hold a non-publicized pow-wow and tell Jeb that they think he should graciously exit the race. I am also quite sure that this will be to Marco Rubio's advantage, at least in Florida.

So, again, IA and NH are fun to watch, but we are seeing a huge media circus over all of 47 delegates total, or 1.90% of all the GOP delegates. My eyes are firmly placed on March 15th, which will be the "Waterloo" for many a GOP candidate who has not yet dropped-out. If Trump sweeps all of the WTA states on March 15th, then I would say it is over with. But if he loses Florida (possible if Bush drops out before and swings his support to Rubio) and Ohio (if Kasich pulls a rabbit out of his hat) and only wins MO's WTA delegates (I am pretty sure that Trump will win MO quite handily), then the race goes on.

The 'anti-Trumps' must collard together 1,237 delegates in order to keep Trump from going over the top, at least on the first ballot.

Let's put it this way:

at the end of February, primaries/caucuses will have happened in the four "first in the nation states", worth a sum total of 121 delegates.

But through March 14th, that sum will grow to 1,038 delegates, all to be proportionally delegated. If Trump average's 40% in the primaries, once you lop off those at the bottom of the totem-pole who did not make the respective %hurdles in those states, or even, per CD, then 40% in the popular vote means about 50% of the delegates, so I expect that Trump should easily amass 500 delegates before the big March 15th primary. If he then gets 300 of the 353 delegates on March 15th, then he is at 800 already and only needs 535 or so to get to the magic number.

After March 15th, 1,390 of the 2,473 delegates will have already been quasi-decided.That leaves us with 1,083 delegates after March 15th, of which Trump would only need 535 to secure IT. And if he does sweep March 15th, then I expect that pretty much everyone except Cruz and Rubio will exit the race.

Short of Reince Priebus calling 500 Superdelegates into existence at the last second and making sure that they all vote against Trump, if he sweeps March 15th, then he will be the GOP nominee. I am more than 99% sure of this, because it's simple math. BTW, RNC rules allow Priebus this form of 'nuclear option', only I doubt he would use it for it would surely split the GOP wide-open and all hell would break out at the convention. However, it IS an option that Mr. Priebus has.

If, however, Cruz wins IA and the delegates are pretty evenly split in both IA and NH, then the whole thing could become much livelier, because California, a state with 169 whopping delegates, is one of the last 6 states. Plus, there is a so-called RNC primary on 21.07.2016, worth 138 delegates (essentially, the Republican version of Superdelegates). So, if the race is less than 100 delegates between Trump and whomever, the RNC "primary" could be the tiebreaker.

Now, I am not a Republican, but I have to commend Reince Priebus for creating a primary system that allows things to be far more competitive, at least for the first 6 weeks of the primaries. Kudos to him for his foresight. I think it's a good thing.

I hope you enjoying my rambling numbers salad. I am multitasking between important business appts.

Surely perotista will see a similar math, he also have a VERY good eye for this stuff. And [MENTION=69526]Derideo_Te[/MENTION] and [MENTION=15690]mertex[/MENTION] like the math stuff, too!!

If you would like to see a good cumulative delegate calendar for Team Red, here is one:

http://www.redstate.com/2015/12/08/2016-gop-primary-calendar-challenge-ted-cruz/

The only change is that there are now 2,473 delegates instead of 2,472.

But just to see how crazy the rules can be, here were the rules for the 2012 states, which I compiled:

http://statistikhengstswelt.blogspot.de/2012/01/2012-gop-primary-season-calendar.html

Take a look at Tennessee:

And just on a side note: Virginia was a WTA state on the Republican side in 2012, it is now a proportional state.

 

Withdrawing from the debate is a shrewd move. To his supporter it will prove he is his own man and not beholden to anyone. And he is on a major Conservative endorsement roll. A debate at this time could only help Cruz who is on a major downward trend.

And I am not a Trump supporter but can appreciate what to me appears to be good tactics.

 

He is beating it now. He has no choice now. Yesterday Falwell endorsed Trump. That will certainly affect the evangelicals that Cruz was looking to dominate with.

 

I was thinking about that before I read your post. It seems whatever candidate or even whatever president will have their supporters that will defend and protect them no matter what they do or say. And yes, cheer them on. Nixon on the day he resigned still had 50% of all Republicans thinking he did nothing wrong, still supported him and thought he had been railroaded.

It is kind of like fans of a sports team. Each team has its die hard fans which stick with them through thick and thin and each team has their fair weather fans. The question here is how many of Trump supporters are the die hard kind and how many are the fair weather kind. That is once he loses a primary or two or falls behind, if he ever does nationally, they will desert him. I don't know.

Trump is an opportunistic, egotistical ba... who thinks everything must be done by his rules. Everyone must play nice with him while he gets to be mean and nasty and play hard ball with everyone else. Perhaps he does hold something big over the GOP, his threat that if the Republican Party do not play nice with him he will run as an independent.

Perhaps the Republican Party should have called his bluff if that was what it was or if a real threat, just told him to go ahead.

 

Hindsight is 20/20, so I suspect that after the debate, we will all know better if this tactic opened up like a rose or not.

 

Trump needed to tag Fox as a biased political enemy. He has succeeded. The absurd NR hissy piece probably convinced him to be proactive.

 

Trump is coming off as a whiny little girl who is afraid of a bully at school.

 

The bottom line is Megyn started it with pure, unadulterated unprofessionalism. Then, months later, Fox makes it worse by sending out a message against Trump.

There comes a time when enough is enough.

And why, in God's name, Why, and Who decided to make that piece of fluff a moderator...again? That shows nothing but total stupidity. They probably thought by pitting the two against each other, more people would watch and they could make bazillions in advertising. Obviously, they still don't get the hatred Americans feel for the media.

This morning on GMA, Matthew Dowd concluded this will help Trump. Of course it will.

And Cruz? Donald has already said if it comes down to just the two of them, he will happily debate him. Why should Trump stop what he's doing to have a little Q&A with Cruz at this point?

Those of you who are squalling about how this will hurt Trump are just proving how out of touch you still are. Stop it! You're making fools of yourselves.

 

It will make Fox and other hostile media sources less credible with Trump's support base. Smart move.

 

I heard that on the news as I took my grand daughter to school this AM. A Trump spokesman said Trump would accept. The news was also playing a clip when Trump challenged the GOP candidates to a debate back in 2012 I think, they didn't specify the year. Only Santorum and Gingrich accepted and Trump was calling the rest of the Republican Field a bunch of cowards. I wonder if that applies to him today vs. Kelly. It was his own words.

As for hurting Trump, I do not know. His supporters no matter how outrages are the things he says or does, they are loyal and it always seems he gathers more and more support despite all of this.

 

Rupert is going to be very, very pissy.

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The Great Flatu is a yooj entertainment attraction.

A GOP presidential debate without the show biz celebrity has all the morbid allure of a demolition derby on tricycles.

.............​

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So try a seltzer bottle on every podium!​

 

They polled Trumps supporters, it was about 50-50 if he should or shouldn't boycott the debate. Well he may not take the hit from his supporters. But he will from Cruz and the Media.



Ted Cruz Verified account 
‏@tedcruz I challenged [MENTION=3512]real[/MENTION]DonaldTrump to a one-on-one debate. Tell him to accept: https://www.tedcruz.org/l/ducking-donald/ … #DuckingDonald


Cruz issued the challenge during Mark Levin's radio show. More from Conservative Review:

Cruz told Levin, "the fact that Donald is now afraid to appear on the debate stage. That he doesn't want his record questioned. I think that reflects a lack of respect for the men and women of Iowa." Cruz said if Trump is afraid of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, or Megyn Kelly hosting a debate that he is willing to do an hour long head to head debate with no moderator......snip~

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiep...eonone-debate-after-fox-news-tantrum-n2110689