Donald Trump won the Republican primary on May 3 by a large margin, causing his two remaining competitors, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to drop out of the race and assuring him of the nomination at the convention in July. The sudden turn of events threw the Republican Party into greater disarray. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the highest elected Republican, has withheld his support. Former presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, the two most recent Republican presidents, have stated that they will not support Trump. A number of noted conservative commentators have refused to support Trump, arguing that he is not a true conservative and unfit for the presidency.
The strong negative reaction to Trump is unprecedented by historical standards. Normally, former presidents, former candidates, and elected officials rally behind the nominee. The last time a loser in the primaries did not support the nominee was 1980, when John Anderson left the Republican Party and ran as an independent. None of the losers this year have floated the idea of an independent bid, but many have refused to support Trump.
Why is the reaction against Donald Trump so strong and what does it mean? Many commentators have argued that Trump represents anti-establishment sentiment and that he is a threat to the Republican establishment. The establishment in both parties consists of rich donors, lobbyists, commentators, and a group of loyal upper income voters. In the Republican Party, the group of loyal voters is upper income businesspeople and members of the investor class. Often called “country club Republicans,” this group is mainly keen on keeping taxes low and reducing the influence of government in the economy. Rich donors, lobbyists, and commentators tend to be more conservative and some represent the causes advocated by conservative Christians. The country club Republicans have tolerated the religious right, but are not interested in many of the contentious social issues, such as same-sex marriage, that have been at the center of its agenda.
During the primaries, the establishment could not settle on a candidate, which gave Trump an opening to appeal to non-establishment Republicans and independents. Trump won the early primaries with 30 percent of the vote, which rose to 40 percent as the field thinned. He crossed 50 percent only recently when he won his home state of New York and neighboring states along the Acela Corridor. He received only 53 percent in Indiana, which was enough to knock the two remaining candidates out of the race. Indeed, Trump has received only about 40 percent of the total vote in the primaries so far, which means that 60 percent have voted for someone else.
The 40 percent figure explains why establishment Republicans are shunning Trump. They know that the 60 percent that has not voted for him does not like him and are deeply disturbed about the result. They are anti-Trump voters. This group is composed mainly of country club Republicans and ideological conservatives, both of pillars of the establishment. Some religious conservatives also oppose Trump because of his more liberal stance on social issues.
Trump has become the nominee by receiving a majority of the delegates with less than a majority of the votes. This is possible because, unlike the Democrats, many states in the Republican Party are winner takes all. In a crowded field, a candidate can win all of the delegates with a narrow plurality of the vote. South Carolina, one of the key early contests, is a winner-take-all state, and Trump won all of the delegates with only 32 percent of the vote. A few weeks later, he won all of the delegates from populous Illinois with only 38 percent of the vote.
After a long primary season in 2012, the Republican Party changed rules so that the process would produce a nominee quickly. People involved in that process are surely regretting their decisions. Perhaps the great lesson of 2016 is that the winner-take-all method distorts the vote and provides a track for an unacceptable candidate like Trump to win.
What does all this mean for the general election in November? Some of the anti-Trump Republicans will hold their nose and vote him, but many will not because they do not believe that he has the temperament to be president. Trump will lose by a landslide, and the Republican establishment will use the defeat to change the rules to prevent the rise of another Trump. Reducing the impact of winner-take-all states will most likely be at the top of their agenda.
By Robert J. Fouser
Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Ann Arbor, Michigan. -- Ed.