Donald Trump’s meteoric rise has perplexed most pundits. Trump doesn’t fit into the traditional categories of GOP aspirants, so many have found it hard to say why he has risen and to discern whether he has a realistic shot at the nomination. The most common explanations are that he is either attracting tea-party conservatives or wooing the same bloc of socio-economically “downscale” voters that backed Ross Perot in 1992.
A close look at the data, however, shows that neither explanation is quite accurate. The polls indicate that Trump’s support is unusually balanced among the GOP’s ideological factions for a candidate this early in the race. While this superficially suggests that his chances of winning the nomination are better than commonly thought, an even closer look shows that Trump’s appeal is likely to be deep but very limited.
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