By Spencer Glassman ’19, Staff Writer

Donald Trump has been the centerpiece of American political conversation since he declared his candidacy last June. He has also become the cover of a Republican party, who in large amounts disdains him. Donald Trump has become too extreme, with disregard for diplomacy and sensibility, creating a situation where he would almost definitely lose the Republican Nomination. Donald Trump does not represent the Republican Party and would be detrimental to their Presidential, Congressional, and Gubernatorial hopes for 2016 and years to come.

Donald Trump is not electable in a general election. Donald Trump has showed to do extremely poorly in polls against both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.^{[1] [2]} In the most recent poll Trump is down 10 points in the general election to Hillary Clinton and down 15 points to Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is as radically left as Trump is right, so it is not a matter of policy why Trump is losing. For example Ted Cruz beat Hillary in the most recent poll between them. Trump loses because he is highly unfavorable; he has a net 25% unfavorability rating which doesn’t bode well for him.^[3] To put it in perspective Clinton has a net 8% unfavorability rating, and Bernie Sanders has a better 3% favorability rating, although 27% of the participants in the poll did not have a favorable or unfavorable opinion, so there is a lot of room to swing if it were to come to a general election. The Republicans need to win this election if they want to avoid the increasingly leftist Hillary Clinton, or the Socialist Bernie Sanders. Republicans have a great chance of winning, as long as they do not nominate Donald Trump. Marco Rubio has a significant lead over Democratic Frontrunner Hillary Clinton, and Ted Cruz has a slight lead as well, although Clinton has a lot more exposure than the other, so it is likely their poll numbers will only increase.^[4] The worst thing that can happen to Republicans would be to lose to Hillary Clinton, and even if you support Trump, his political ideas are useless if he can not win, so the Republicans must nominate anyone other thanTrump.

Donald Trump has advocated ideas clearly against the Constitution. In fact he directly, and publicly opposes a part of the Constitution, the fourteenth amendment.^[5] Donald Trump has held directly conflicting view on this issue, as he has stated he is against birthright citizenship and he believes Ted Cruz has to have been born in the United States to run for president.

Donald Trump is not a Republican and misuses the name and even worse does not support the Constitution. Donald Trump has been a member of the Democratic Party, has voted for Democrats, and taken liberal stances on a number of issues, including abortion. For this election he has flipped his views in order to appeal favorably to a large minority of Americans. There is nobility in his quest to represent these Americans whose voices were not hurt before.

One of Trump’s Controversial Comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6QEqoYgQxw

All Statistics are as of January 21, 2016.

^[1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

^[2] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html

^[3] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-really-unpopular-with-general-election-voters/

^[4] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_rubio_vs_clinton-3767.html

^[5] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/18/politics/birthright-citizenship-trump-constitution/