Marco Rubio, with his Hispanic surname, fluent Spanish, modest background, and strong defense of Reagan conservatism, had seemed to many a formidable candidate ever since his election to the Senate from Florida in 2010. He was featured on magazine covers as the great Republican hope, and had decided on a run in 2016 despite having to compete with his mentor in Florida politics, Jeb Bush. He was a fresh face, but had served longer in the Senate than Barack Obama had in 2008 and had been Speaker of the Florida House before that. He was a candidate who, in theory, could bridge varying factions in the party—Tea Party, business Republicans, social conservatives, foreign policy hawks. But for many he was too young (or looked too young, with a baby face that belied his years in politics), too glib, too “establishment,” or too moderate in his tone. He had been badly hurt by his entanglement in the Gang of Eight immigration proposal and then his subsequent attempts to back away from it, and he had alienated some libertarian-leaning members of the Tea Party with his interventionist national security views.
Ted Cruz, on the other hand, had not allowed his Tea Party credentials to be undermined while in office. Like Rubio, he was young, smart, and well-spoken. Unlike Rubio, he also built a strong organization almost everywhere, and arguably made more and better use of data than anyone else in the Republican field. His campaign was aimed first and foremost at the True Conservatives who Cruz thought controlled the Republican primary process. In 2013, Cruz had been the driving force in using the budget process to try to defund Obamacare, a strategy that resulted in a brief government shutdown. He had largely avoided the taint of “insider” or “establishment” by making himself hated by Senate Republican leadership, starting with Mitch McConnell, whom he had called a “liar” on the floor of the Senate. However, his conservative positions and persona made it difficult for him to broaden his support. Finally, John Kasich had a resume that might have secured the nomination in other years. He was also governor of the crucial state of Ohio, and polled better against Hillary Clinton than any other major Republican contender. He brought together Middle America and Washington, D.C., and, like Bush, his record was somewhere on the moderate conservative side of the spectrum—where the real fulcrum of the Republican primary electorate usually resides, among the self-described “somewhat conservative.” In a crazy year, Kasich could hope to appear as the “adult” in the race. However, in 2016, Washington was more of a drag than usual, and his Ohio experience had been tainted in the eyes of fiscal conservatives by his decision to accept Medicaid expansion as part of Obamacare. Moreover, he chose to position himself as an ideological renegade, in the mold of an Arlen Specter or Jon Huntsman—two notably unsuccessful aspirants—rather than where the bulk of his record would naturally put him.
On the outsider/ideological grid, Bush and Kasich were on the inside center, Cruz was on the outside right, and Rubio was on the middle of the inside-outside spectrum and the right of the ideological spectrum. Bush could never appeal to the Tea Party or the anti-establishment sentiment ultimately channeled by Trump. Rubio, rather than building bridges, was caught betwixt and between—too establishment for the Tea Party that had embraced him in 2010, too conservative for others. Cruz could appeal to some of Rubio’s people but fewer of Bush’s and Kasich’s. Kasich was anathema to many of Cruz’s people and some of Rubio’s. Ultimately, winning the “not Trump” primary proved so difficult that no one did.
From the moment in June 2015 that Trump glided down the escalator at Trump Tower in New York to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, he controlled the message and tempo of the contest, making bold statements in everyday language (what communications experts call “demotic rhetoric”). At the beginning, most of his competitors and nearly all analysts saw Trump as a colorful diversion from the real race between the serious candidates, at worst a buffoon who should be humored until he inevitably fell of his own weight. Trump’s public relations consultant Stephanie Cegielski, who left the campaign early on, would later contend that Trump himself never expected to win and aimed to burnish his brand by finishing second in the Republican field as a protest candidate.2 His opponents’ biggest concern was not that he would win, but rather that he would lose, leave the party, and take his voters with him. To hem him in, the RNC brokered a pledge that each candidate would support the ultimate nominee. By the time most saw him for what he was—a serious threat—he had staked his claim to a powerful plurality and could not be dislodged.
In retrospect, it is tempting to criticize Trump’s opponents for shortsightedness, but in reality almost no one got Trump right.3 He was a mysterious candidate, committing a series of blunders that would likely have sunk any other candidate. His announcement statement at the beginning of his campaign achieved notoriety when he said of Mexican immigrants, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. . . . They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”4 Weeks later he ridiculed war hero and 2008 GOP presidential nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona for having been a prisoner of war, saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.”5 After the first Republican presidential debate, Trump assailed moderator Megyn Kelly of Fox News, blaming her menstrual period for tough questions. He also mocked a disabled reporter.
Nevertheless, he struck a chord with voters, attacking both parties with gusto, calling American political leaders “stupid,” and promising to “make America great again” (a slogan first used by Ronald Reagan in 1980) by bringing back lost manufacturing jobs, building a wall with Mexico and making them pay for it, and renegotiating trade agreements. “We’re not winning anymore,” Trump complained. Trump’s wealth also worked to his benefit, giving him the appearance of a “winner” and allowing him to claim to know how to stop Washington corruption; he could not be bought, but rather was someone who had bought politicians himself! Some analysts were surprised that the billionaire could make a connection with working-class voters, but those voters, it turns out, resent condescending professionals much more than the super-rich, who they often admire and dream of emulating.6 Trump, some suggested, might be the American version of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, a media magnate who parlayed his wealth and bold image into power.
Only days after Trump announced his candidacy, an illegal immigrant named Francisco Sanchez shot and killed Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier, an incident that received national attention; Sanchez had previously been deported five times and admitted that he kept coming back to San Francisco because it had declared itself a “sanctuary” for the undocumented.7 Trump may also have been fortunate that the front-runner at the time was Jeb Bush, offering a perfect foil for an outsider campaign—not only the consummate insider but also the next in line of the premier Republican family dynasty in America. Trump quickly took to calling Bush “low energy Jeb,” a barb aimed at Bush’s apparent diffidence at running for president. Bush also tripped when asked whether the Iraq War was a mistake, taking five days of incoherence to reach a conclusion. Trump ridiculed him for that, too, while asserting (against the evidence) that he had been a strong opponent of the war (“a terrible mistake”) from the beginning. In one debate, Bush pushed back by defending his wife against a slight by Trump. Rick Perry and John Kasich took a few shots at Trump early. Otherwise, for the most part, Trump was unscathed in the fall of 2015, as his multitudinous rivals jockeyed against each other. Speaking for many, Marco Rubio’s campaign manager Terry Sullivan admitted wrongly assuming “that gravity would take its course. Why would I engage in a fight with a skilled knife-fighter? Let someone else go and attack him.”8
It was difficult for any of them to get noticed. Ted Cruz began as very complimentary of Trump, seeing that some of his issues were Trump’s as well (especially immigration and a general disdain for the establishment). Cruz clearly hoped that being nice to Trump would make it easier to inherit his
supporters whenever he collapsed. In the meantime, he worked to establish himself as the conservative candidate in the race by not allowing anyone to get to his right in any issue. Marco Rubio also tried to steer clear of Trump, though his participation in the unsuccessful Gang of Eight immigration proposal made him a target of Trump (as well as Cruz and others). Chris Christie, it was learned in late 2016, had reached by the fall of 2015 a modus vivendi with Trump, in which the two would look after each other and whoever dropped out first (Trump initially confided that he thought it might be him) would endorse the other.9 Carly Fiorina had a moment of glory when she turned on Trump at a presidential debate, giving him a dose of his own medicine after he had attacked her appearance: “Women all over the country heard you loud and clear.”10 She gained a few points in the polls but quickly lost them.
Underscoring the degree to which it was shaping up as an outsiders’ year, the one candidate other than Trump to gain noticeable traction in the fall of 2015 was Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon who was the only person in the field with as little political experience as Trump. Both nationally and in the first-voting state of Iowa, Carson came up quickly, challenging or even surpassing Trump’s poll numbers. He did it by offering an undiluted outsiderism that was also free of Trump’s vulgarities and moral irregularities. In October and November, Trump was sliding, and it seemed possible that the critics were right: maybe he was a transient meteor, whose flight across the sky was already crashing down.
Then events intervened. On November 13, ISIS supporters waged a mass terror attack in Paris; less than three weeks later, a married couple of radical Islamic terrorists attacked a local government holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing fourteen before dying themselves. Trump seized on the moment, demanding a temporary complete halt to Muslim immigration. In contrast to the progressive pieties of the Obama administration, which could not even countenance the use of the term “Islamic terrorism,” Trump’s stand was noteworthy. To many Americans, it was shockingly extreme (even Ted Cruz politely disagreed with Trump’s position). To many others, it represented a refreshing outburst of common sense and a rebuke to political correctness, another successful example of Trump’s demotic rhetoric. However one saw it—and Trump himself would later back away from it—it reestablished the New Yorker as a force with momentum. The terrorist attacks also helped Trump by putting a premium on the appearance of strength, and it fatally undermined other candidates, especially Rand Paul, whose libertarian distrust of the National Security Agency suddenly seemed misguided and dangerous, and Ben Carson,11 whose campaign manager would later say “There was an opportunity for a nice outsider to win until Paris came, and then all of a sudden (voters) needed ‘strength’ again.”12
Other candidates never had momentum to lose and gain back again. Pataki, Jindal, and Gilmore never gained traction. The repeat contenders Perry, Huckabee, and Santorum also languished toward the bottom of the pack, unable to reprise past successes. Surprisingly, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, widely seen as a serious contender, was never able to translate his state labor successes into a broader agenda or broader support. Seeing the writing on the wall, he dropped out in September, warning that other candidates should do the same or they would be paving a road for Trump. Joining him on the island of non-survivors, candidates who quit the race before the end of the year included Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki.
Throughout the last half of 2015, most of the candidates did what candidates always do. They raised money, some more than others. If Jeb Bush was no longer the leader of the polls, he solidified his position as leader of the bank account. Bush raised more than any other candidate, and the super PACs backing him raised more than any other outside groups. The candidates debated, mostly in the placid, respectful, and rehearsed style to which they were accustomed. The candidates, or at any rate the ones who were not out of their league, built organizations, sought endorsements, and carefully honed their messages. While they prepared, Trump broke all the rules. He foreswore fundraising and spent little on the army of pollsters and consultants that traditionally surrounds every major campaign. He relied on rallies, Twitter, and free media to spread his message; by one estimate, he eventually received nearly $2 billion worth of free media coverage through mid-March 2016.13 Though Fox News, Breitbart, and the Drudge Report were at the forefront of Trump’s media extravaganza, more liberal outlets such as CNN and CBS joined, too, compelled by the colorful copy (and perhaps, some conservatives warned, by a secret desire to pump up Hillary Clinton’s weakest opponent). CBS executive Les Moonves explained that Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. . . . The money’s rolling in and this is fun.”14 Trump eschewed endorsements as a matter of necessity— there were few Republican officeholders willing to back him—though lack of endorsements also made him a more authentic outsider. He largely eschewed organization, relying instead on his ephemeral charisma. In and out of debates, he kept his opponents off balance by simply refusing to play by the rules of civility; he “punched down” at trailing contenders more than any other candidate.15
As 2015 turned to 2016, the campaigns prepared to meet the test of reality. The battle would move from planning to execution—and in Trump’s case, from rallies to the voting booth. He could get people to wear his trademark red “Make America Great Again” hats, but could he get them to go to the polls and pull the lever? Many doubted that he could. In the cold of Iowa, they would soon have reason to doubt some more.
IOWA
As always, the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses were the focus of considerable candidate and media attention. For a time in the fall, Ben Carson led, but by December, the battle had resolved itself into two distinct contests: a struggle for first place between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and a contest for third place among a gaggle of candidates, including Carson, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Jeb Bush. Cruz began his rise in early October, at the same time Carson did, but continued rising after Carson had peaked and fallen back. In early December, Cruz took the lead in the RealClearPolitics poll average, only to see Trump regain it in early January. In the back-and-forth, Cruz attacked the libertine Trump in down-home Iowa by tagging him with the label “New York values.” Trump countered by citing the courage and patriotism of 9/11, but Cruz would not pay the full price for his comment until later. In the meantime, Rubio had passed Carson into third place in mid-December and had started a sharp climb the last ten days of January, propelled by an exchange with an atheist at a campaign event that went viral and brought many evangelical voters into his camp.16 On January 31, the day before caucus day, the RealClearPolitics polling average showed Trump at 28 percent, Cruz at 23 percent, and Rubio at 17 percent, with others well behind.17
The results of the caucuses the next day demonstrated the difficulty of polling in a low-turnout contest decided by a largely invisible organization and last-minute trends. Cruz won with 28 percent, Trump finished second with 24 percent, and Rubio nearly snuck past Trump with 23 percent. As soon as the votes were counted, some commentators rushed to declare Trump dead, or at least severely wounded. At the very least, he had “underper-formed” his polls, casting doubts on whether his professed supporters, many of whom were not regular voters, would show up to the polls. At the same time, Rubio maneuvered to take full advantage of his third-place showing, making the first “victory” speech of the evening and treating the result as a win worthy of serious momentum. Cruz’s hope was that Trump had been proven a paper tiger; Rubio’s hope was that neither Cruz nor Trump had broad enough appeal to go the distance, and his own third-place finish would focus attention on him as the most viable alternative.
However, the entrance polls also showed potential for Trump to remain a force in the race, especially as terrain shifted to other states with different demographics.18 Trump won voters with high school education or less, while Cruz won those with some college and Rubio won college graduates and postgraduates. Cruz and Rubio bot
h outdid Trump among those who had participated in caucuses before, but a very large number (45 percent) said they were new voters, and Trump won those decisively. Iowa was an open caucus, and one in five voters were independents; Trump and Rubio shared the win among them, with Cruz trailing. Cruz won a big plurality among self-described “very conservative” voters, Rubio won a solid victory among “somewhat conservative” voters, and Trump won among “moderate” voters. In heavily evangelical Iowa, where nearly two-thirds of Republican caucus-goers described themselves as “born-again or evangelical Christians,” Cruz won the evangelical vote, as expected. However, Trump not only won the non-evangelical vote but also finished second among evangelicals, edging out Rubio. Rubio’s opportunity and challenge were clear—he did well among a variety of groups (for instance, he was the only Republican to break 20 percent among both evangelicals and non-evangelicals), but he would have to make an extra move to go beyond being everyone’s second choice.
The issue environment was not clarified in Iowa, either. Trump won a huge margin among voters citing immigration as their top concern, but that was only 13 percent of the voters. One in four said the economy was their top concern; Rubio won that group. One in four said terrorism and one in three said government spending were most important, and Cruz was their man. Interestingly, Rubio also beat Trump on terrorism. The December San Bernardino attack may have revived Trump’s campaign nationally, but, at least in Iowa, it did not translate into votes. Among voters who put electability at the top of the list of things they were looking for in a candidate, Rubio had the edge; among voters looking for a nominee who shared their values, Cruz won decisively; among the one in three who wanted a candidate who “tells it like it is” or “can bring change,” Trump prevailed, as he did decisively among those who wanted a candidate outside the establishment. (Trump also accumulated another insulting moniker for an opponent: “Lyin’ Ted,” he claimed implausibly, had won by falsely claiming that Ben Carson was about to leave the race.) The voters who preferred experience in politics split their votes between Rubio and Cruz, both first-term senators. If nothing else, it was clear that this was going to be an outsider year.
Defying the Odds Page 12