Trump: The Will of the People? (Part 2)

This is the second of a two-part series examining the overall primary results of the 2016 Republican contest, in an attempt to determine whether Donald Trump is truly "the will of the people", as he and his supporters frequently claim. For part one, go here.

The nationwide number of votes for and against a nominee, though a useful overall metric, doesn’t tell the whole story, or accurately answer the question of whether Donald Trump’s nomination is truly “the will of the people”. The final variable to look at, which will offer a much more specific view of the entire primary season, is a breakdown of the statewide results of each individual primary and caucus, from the Iowa caucuses on February 1 through the final batch of primary states on June 7. Seeing how the numbers for both Trump and his opponents varies between states, and over time, offers a much more useful snapshot of the race as a whole.

Date:	State:	Type:	Trump	Cruz	Rubio	Kasich
2/1	Iowa	Caucus	24.3%	27.6%	23.1%	1.9%
2/9	New Hampshire	Open	35.3%	11.7%	10.6%	15.8%
2/20	South Carolina	Open	32.5%	22.3%	22.5%	7.6%
2/23	Nevada	Caucus	45.9%	21.4%	23.9%	3.6%
3/1	Alabama	Closed	43.4%	21.1%	18.7%	4.4%
3/1	Alaska	Caucus	33.5%	36.4%	15.1%	4.1%
3/1	Arkansas	Open	32.8%	30.5%	24.9%	3.7%
3/1	Georgia	Open	38.8%	23.6%	24.4%	5.6%
3/1	Massachusetts	Open	49.3%	9.6%	17.9%	18.0%
3/1	Minnesota	Caucus	21.3%	29.0%	36.5%	5.8%
3/1	Oklahoma	Closed	28.3%	34.4%	26.0%	3.6%
3/1	Tennessee	Open	38.9%	24.7%	21.2%	5.3%
3/1	Texas	Open	26.7%	43.8%	17.7%	4.2%
3/1	Vermont	Open	32.7%	9.7%	19.3%	30.4%
3/1	Virginia	Open	34.7%	16.9%	31.9%	9.4%
3/5	Kansas	Caucus	23.3%	48.2%	16.7%	10.7%
3/5	Kentucky	Closed	35.9%	31.6%	16.4%	14.4%
3/5	Louisiana	Closed	41.4%	37.8%	11.2%	6.4%
3/5	Maine	Caucus	32.6%	45.9%	8.0%	12.2%
3/6	Puerto Rico	Open	13.6%	9.0%	73.8%	1.4%
3/8	Hawaii	Caucus	42.4%	32.7%	13.1%	10.6%
3/8	Idaho	Caucus	28.1%	45.4%	15.9%	7.4%
3/8	Michigan	Open	36.5%	24.9%	9.3%	24.3%
3/8	Mississippi	Open	47.3%	36.3%	5.1%	8.8%
3/12	Washington, D.C.	Caucus	13.8%	12.4%	37.3%	35.5%
3/15	Florida	Closed	45.7%	17.1%	27.0%	6.8%
3/15	Illinois	Open	38.8%	30.3%	8.7%	19.7%
3/15	Missouri	Open	40.9%	40.7%	6.1%	9.9%
3/15	North Carolina	Open	40.2%	36.8%	7.7%	12.7%
3/15	Ohio	Open	35.6%	13.1%	2.9%	46.8%
3/15	Northern Mariana Islands	Caucus	54.0%	34.4%	1.1%	2.1%
3/22	Arizona	Closed	47.1%	24.9%	13.3%	10.0%
3/22	Utah	Caucus	14.0%	69.2%	---	16.8%
4/5	Wisconsin	Open	35.1%	48.2%	1.0%	14.1%
4/19	New York	Closed	60.4%	14.5%	---	25.1%
4/26	Connecticut	Closed	57.9%	11.7%	---	28.4%
4/26	Delaware	Closed	60.8%	15.9%	0.9%	20.4%
4/26	Maryland	Closed	54.4%	18.9%	0.7%	23.0%
4/26	Pennsylvania	Closed	56.7%	21.6%	0.7%	19.4%
4/26	Rhode Island	Closed	63.8%	10.4%	0.6%	24.4%
5/3	Indiana	Open	53.3%	36.6%	0.5%	7.6%
5/10	Nebraska	Caucus	61.4%	18.4%	3.6%	11.4%
5/10	West Virginia	Open	77.0%	9.0%	1.4%	6.7%
5/17	Oregon	Closed	66.6%	17.0%	---	16.3%
5/24	Washington	Caucus	75.8%	10.5%	---	9.8%
6/7	California	Closed	75.3%	9.2%	---	11.3%
6/7	Montana	Open	73.7%	9.4%	3.3%	6.9%
6/7	New Jersey	Closed	80.4%	6.2%	---	13.4%
6/7	New Mexico	Closed	70.7%	13.3%	---	7.6%
6/7	South Dakota	Closed	67.1%	17.0%	---	15.9%

(As an aside, I also noted whether each state held a caucus, closed primary, or open primary. It has been well analyzed many times by several different people how Trump does far better in the latter type of contest, which allows independents and, in some cases, Democrats to vote in Republican primaries, than in those elections which only allow dedicated Republican voters to participate. That particular angle is one for another discussion, but it is to some degree borne out in the data and leaves open the question of how many of Trump’s plurality of primary voters are even Republicans.)

This chart clearly shows that Trump was struggling to unite the primary electorate behind him as late as May, when he won a bare majority in the Indiana primary which nonetheless effectively ended the GOP primary season. Even later than that, however, and without a major opponent in the race, Trump endured a few embarrassingly small victories, winning just 61% of the vote in the Nebraska caucuses on May 10, and 67% of the vote in the South Dakota primary on June 7, the last night of Republican primary voting. Considering the fact that, as of the South Dakota results, Trump had been effectively unopposed for the nomination for over a month, his vote tally in this contest—in which Ted Cruz and John Kasich received just over 10,000 votes apiece—points to a continuing struggle to win over large segments of the party electorate.

For comparison’s sake, let’s look at a couple vote percentages from late in the 2008 and 2012 primary seasons, when John McCain and Mitt Romney were also running effectively unopposed. In 2008, the Nebraska primary was held on May 13, and the South Dakota and New Mexico primaries were on June 3. John McCain received 87% of the vote in Nebraska; 70% in South Dakota; and 86% in New Mexico. While it is understandable that not every voter would be willing to line up behind any one candidate, particularly after a divisive primary process which lasted for months, McCain was also able to unify a much wider swath of the party behind him, and by the end of the 2008 primary calendar saw none of his statewide vote totals drop anywhere near the percentages Trump has continued to receive.

In 2012, both New Mexico and South Dakota again held their primaries at the beginning of June, this time on June 5. Mitt Romney, by then the presumptive nominee, received 73% of the vote in New Mexico and 66% in South Dakota, figures much closer to those received by Trump at the same point in this election season (in the interest of fairness, Trump did about one percent better in South Dakota than Romney in 2012). However, this point comes with two caveats: first, Romney had effectively secured the nomination by mid-April, with Rick Santorum formally dropping out and Newt Gingrich scaling back operations after losing a string of primaries. By comparison, Donald Trump was still losing primaries, and trailing in state polls of upcoming primary contests, well into April, and his campaign did not begin looking like it would wrap up the nomination before the convention until the “Acela primary” on April 26. This extended intraparty tensions through May and into June, motivating both pro- and anti-Trump voters to show up to the polls through the last day of voting, whereas in 2012 motivation was likely highest for those voters steadfastly opposed to Romney.

And second, this data must be taken alongside all the rest: Trump’s low vote totals in states where he was running unopposed, combined with his struggle to put away the nomination until May, combined with his historically low percentage of votes in the primary nationally, combined with the historically high number of votes cast against him, all point to the conclusion that, far from being “the choice of the people”, Donald Trump is in fact the choice of only a plurality of Republican primary voters, and not an especially strong plurality at that. The numbers do bear out the argument that Romney had certain weaknesses with segments of the party, and the conventional wisdom is indeed that Romney was a comparatively weak nominee. But he at least received an absolute majority of primary votes nationally.

What the numbers do show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the majority of Republican voters wanted nothing to do with Donald Trump from the beginning.