Who is popular today?

In some ways, Trump may be even more difficult for his Republican rivals to beat next year than he was seven years agoIt’s worth remembering that most Republican voters didn’t back Donald Trump in the race for the party’s nomination in 2016. Trump came away with something like 45% of the vote in the Republican primaries; though the field had by then shrunk to just three candidates – Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz – polls showed Trump struggling to hit 50% support among Republicans as late as early April of that year.Most explanations for his victory justifiably center around his political style and the rise of the rightwing populism we’ve come to call Trumpism ⁠– though it significantly predated Trump ⁠– among a growing share of Republicans. But as a practical matter, Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 for a very simple reason: he built and kept a large minority of incredibly loyal supporters within the party, while the majority of Republican voters, who would have preferred another candidate, split their votes among too many alternatives. Had they united behind one candidate early enough in the race, Trump may well have lost. Instead, they divided themselves into defeat.Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...