Trump Followers Are Dead Set Against GOP Tricks

GOP voters in no mood for party tricks

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Sam Rolley

Personal Liberty Poll

Exercise your right to vote.

A couple of interesting polls out this week illustrate just how much damage the GOP leadership may risk if voters get the impression that the party is snubbing Donald Trump for a more establishment nominee leading up to the convention.

With talk of a brokered convention this summer heating up, Rasmussen asked GOP voters should handle the event in the increasingly likely event that no candidate arrives at the convention to with enough delegates to be named the nominee outright.

Fifty-one percent of respondents said the candidate with the highest number of delegates should be named the nominee without further meddling from the party elite. Thirty-four percent, meanwhile, said no clear winner heading into the convention should give delegates the opportunity to choose a nominee by voting for whoever they want.

And here is where things get a little trickier for GOP leaders increasingly hinting that the convention may be used to nominate someone who isn’t currently running for president: A paltry 4 percent of respondents to the Rasmussen poll said they feel comfortable with party leaders picking a nominee.

A separate poll, out Tuesday from Quinnipiac, gives the impression that a healthy number of respondents to the Rasmussen questions are Trump backers.

That’s because the polling data show that Trump supporters are by far the most likely group of voters to feel the people running the country, and its two major political parties, have set us all on the wrong path.

Ninety-one percent of Trump backers say they feel their “beliefs and values are under attack” by the government elite. And among 85 percent of Trump backers, there’s a firm belief that “America has lost its identity.”

In addition, 90 percent say they believe public officials “don’t care what people like me think.”

“Trump supporters are true standouts,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Dr. Douglas Schwartz. “They want a leader who is very different from the leader sought by other voters, explaining the mystery many see behind Trump’s support.”

Trump’s brazen political approach is so appealing to his supporters because 84 percent say they are looking for “a leader who is willing to say or do anything to solve America’s problems.”

And that should worry the GOP establishment because it could mean voters emboldened by Trump are also willing to go to great lengths to fix the problems they see in America today—maybe even through political revolt to dismantle a party that would betray them.