Donald Trump’s road to the White House features a unique obstacle: He is the first candidate in modern presidential primary history to launch a campaign with a majority of his own party disliking him, the number crunchers at Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight reported Tuesday.
Mr. Silver’s FiveThirtyEight took an average of three recent polls and concluded that 57 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Mr. Trump.
“Trump is the anti-LeBron — popularity is performance in politics, and Trump is the first candidate in modern presidential primary history to begin the campaign with a majority of his own party disliking him. […] That beats former record holder Pat Buchanan, who had a 43 percent unfavorable rating at this point in the 2000 election cycle. Buchanan, of course, ended up running as an independent,” FiveThirtyEight reported.
The billionaire and reality television star began his campaign in New York on Tuesday at the Trump Tower by promising to “make our country great again.”
FiveThirtyEight added that Mr. Trump has “a better chance of cameoing in another ’Home Alone’ movie with Macaulay Culkin” than winning the 2016 Republican nomination.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.