The Cruz campaign\u2019s attempt to coalesce the #NeverTrump movement around their candidate #NeverHappened. In hindsight, the attempt to position him as the establishment alternative may not have been the wisest move.<\/p>\n
Ted Cruz entered the 2016 presidential race with a reputation as the Senate Republican conference\u2019s enfant terrible<\/i>. He ended his campaign as the establishment\u2019s last hope to deny Donald Trump the party\u2019s nomination. The problem is that GOP voters\u2019 desire for a political outsider intensified just as he was making this pivot.<\/p>\n
Exit polls conducted by the national media\u2019s National Election Pool asked voters in 24 different contests this year whether the next president should have experience in politics or be from outside the political establishment.<\/p>\n
In the first four contests held in February, Republican voters were divided \u2013 49 percent wanted an outsider while 45 percent favored someone with political experience. The preference for an insider fell off in early March\u2019s Super Tuesday primaries \u2013 with 49 percent still wanting an outsider but only 41 percent looking for political experience.<\/p>\n
By the mid-March primaries, a 52 percent majority of GOP voters preferred a political outsider compared to 41 percent who still wanted an experienced politician. The gap widened in the April contests, with nearly 6-in-10 Republicans (59 percent) wanting an outsider and just 37 percent favoring an insider. In yesterday\u2019s Indiana primary, the results for this question stood at 59 percent outsider and 35 percent insider.<\/p>\n
The Cruz recasting gambit worked to the extent that he was ultimately seen as the establishment candidate \u2013 68 percent of Indiana Republicans who want an insider voted for him. In the very first contest of 2016 \u2013 the Iowa caucuses \u2013 Marco Rubio was actually the preferred candidate of voters wanting someone with political experience, even though Cruz was the overall winner on the night.<\/p>\n
However, Donald Trump has been the favored choice of GOP voters looking for a true outsider since the very beginning of the primary season. He won 46 percent of this group\u2019s vote in Iowa, culminating with a 78 percent showing in Indiana three months later.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn retrospect, Cruz’s pivot to being the face of the establishment was a mistake. Cruz ceded the outsider mantle to Trump at the very same time the Republican base’s desire for an outsider grew,\u201d said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Cruz campaign\u2019s attempt to coalesce the #NeverTrump movement around their candidate #NeverHappened. In hindsight, the attempt to position him as the establishment alternative may not have been the wisest move. Ted Cruz entered the 2016 presidential race with a reputation as the Senate Republican conference\u2019s enfant terrible. He ended his campaign as the establishment\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802235915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802235915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802235915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802235915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802237955,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802235915\/revisions\/40802237955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802235915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802235915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802235915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}