In a poll by Game Changer PAC, surveying 2,226 likely Republican voters, 59.66% of respondents said that if Jeb Bush ends up as the 2016 Republican Presidential Nominee
they wont vote at all in the 2016 General Election.
The poll shows that Republican voters are tired of holding their noses and will no longer vote in lock-step with the party.
Bush is seen as a fundraising powerhouse and is on track to raise over 100 million dollars by the end of May. This fact is causing the establishment wing of the Republican party to salivate more than Pavlovs Dogs in a fire drill. The sad fact is that throughout recent history BOTH major parties have decided which perspective nominees will be endorsed by the full weight of their parties primarily on fundraising successes.
The Republican party has been dealing with push-back from this model for the last few years with the rise of the Tea Party- and has seen some positive results and an energized base- though this is not the partys doing or desire.
The Democrat party has maintained this model and used the rise of the Tea Party as fodder for negative campaign ads. With some candidates and strategists even going so far as to brand Republican candidates with ZERO tea party support as Tea Partiers or Tea Baggers in the hopes that by branding them in that way the Democrats low-information segment will become energized due to a stigma that has been unfairly attached to all members of the Tea Party due to the actions of a few of them.
While it is still too early to tell if the establishment wings of both parties will get the message that simply running candidates that share 90% of the same views, just with a different letter behind their name, doesnt work anymore. The American people are doing their best to try to get that message across.
However, when you listen to most pundits, the race has already been fought. Most have declared that in the 2016 general election Jeb Bush will be pitted against Hillary Clinton and that Clinton will come out ahead, ultimately becoming the 45th President of the United States.
But in reality we still have no clue who the nominees will be much less the next President. Currently there are over 300 people who have filed with the FEC to run for President in 2016, with more added all the time.
One thing is for sure though: If Jeb Bush is the Republican Presidential Nominee, whoever the Democrat Presidential Nominee is will be the next President.
UPDATE (5/8/2015):
A large number of people have accused Game Changer PAC of lying about the results, Of making the whole thing up as a hit piece against Jeb Bush, Of not using a random sample for our poll, et cetera ad nauseam.
This update is to clarify some of those misconceptions.
- The plain and simple truth is that it was a scientific poll, open to all likely Republican Primary voters. The respondents had to answer YES to the question Are you likely to vote in the Republican Presidential Primaries in order to be counted.
- There were no incentives to be part of the poll and there were no restrictions such as liking our facebook page, following us on twitter, or being subscribed to our newsletter.
- We took great pains when crafting the poll to be fully impartial and not show favoritism to ANY candidate over another. No candidates names were listed as part of the text of a question, and in answer sections that listed candidates names, as possible answers, all candidates were listed in alphabetical order.
- The question SELECT THE CANDIDATES -IF ANY- , THAT, IF THEY BECAME THE NOMINEE, WOULD CAUSE YOU TO NOT VOTE IN THE 2016 GENERAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. was an optional question that respondents were not required to answer.
- We included this question because of what we saw in the 2014 California Gubernatorial Election. In that election you had 3 main candidates.
Jerry Brown (Democratic incumbent)
Neel Kashkari (Establishment Republican candidate)
Tim Donnelly (Tea Party Republican candidate)
Kashkari was seen by many Tea Party Republicans as more liberal than Brown due to his management of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Donnelly was a founding member of the Minute Men civilian border patrol and an unabashed right winger. Kashkari was a late entry, to replace Able Maldonado who dropped out, with a lot of money behind him.
Because of Kashkaris perceived liberalism many far right Republicans publicly stated that they would skip the General Election if Donnelly wasnt the nominee -Since write-ins arent allowed in partisan General Elections in California due to Prop 14.
Kashkari went on to beat Donnelly in the Primary and then those who said that they wouldnt vote in the general, didnt. The 2014 California Gubernatorial General Election had a turnout rate of 21.4% which was not only a record low but less than half of the turn out seen in the 2010 midterms.
- We were very surprised by the result of the poll, which is why we wrote about it. If a different candidate had seen a similar result then it would be their name in the title of this article, not Jeb Bushs.
- Game Changer PAC has not endorsed or backed any Current or Potential 2016 Presidential Candidate from ANY political party.
We understand that this is not a favorable poll result for Jeb Bush. We understand why so many have reservations about believing the results. However, those were the results.
Thank you for reading.
UPDATE 2 (5/8/15)
For those of you that are complaining about the Margin of Error.
We calculated margin of error using the z*-Value for 95% confidence (standard) which is 1.96 we used the proper equation of : Z√P(1-P)/n=1.96√(0.5966)(.4034)/2226 =(1.96)(0.010397) = 0.02037812
Which means a 2% margin of error
Poster Comment:
Even more despised than Willie-Mitt?