By Spencer Glassman ’19, Staff Writer

Donald Trump has been the centerpiece of American political conversation since he declared his presidential candidacy last June. He has also become the figurehead of a Republican party that largely disdains him. Donald Trump has become too extreme with his 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. His nomination would be detrimental to the Republican party’s presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial hopes for 2016 and beyond.

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 a 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 policy is not the reason Trump is losing. For example, Ted Cruz beats beat Hillary in the most recent poll between them. Trump loses because he is highly unfavorable, he has a poor net unfavorability rating: 25%.^[3] To put it in perspective, Clinton has a net 8% unfavorability rating and Bernie Sanders has a 3% favorability rating. Still, 27% of the participants in the poll did not have a favorable or unfavorable opinion, which means 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 we 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.^[4] The worst thing that can happen to Republicans is losing to Hillary Clinton. Even if you support Trump, his political ideas are useless if he can not win. The Republican party must nominate someone else.

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 also held a 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 misuses the name of the Republican party 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 number of Americans. There is nobility in his quest to represent these Americans whose voices were not heard before, but he is not Republican.

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/