Did Trump actually do better than Rubio or Bush or Cruz or Kasich would have done?

[Garrett78]

Popular is the notion that Trump made for a much worse candidate than some of the mainstream Republicans who sought the nomination. I question that assumption. Although we'll never know for sure, I can't help but wonder if turnout for Trump was actually substantially higher than turnout would have been for a different Republican candidate.

As one author put it, "Trump’s appeal is cultural, rather than economic. It’s a mix of anti-elitism, anti-political correctness, and white identity politics, not carefully cultivated policies. The fact that we’re talking about the white working class, instead of just the working class, is a pretty big clue."

Simply put, Trump's appeal is extremely strong (cult-like) among the Republican electorate. As Obama had said during the campaign, the GOP has been "feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years."

For another thing, Trump was able to dominate the news cycle day after day, week after week, month after month. And I doubt the negative press turned off many (if any) of his supporters--in fact, it probably inspired them. So, when the media wasn't talking about Clinton emails, it was all Trump all the time.

Lastly, neither the anti-trade nor the anti-establishment narrative really holds up to scrutiny, as I've written repeatedly. Major proponents of the TPP won even more easily than Trump did, those backed most strongly by Sanders did worse than Clinton, the re-election rate of incumbents was even higher than normal, and so on.

In other words, I don't think Trump's appeal is as rooted in anti-establishment sentiment as some would have us believe. I think his appeal is much more visceral than that.

Again, did Trump perhaps do better than any of the other Republicans would have done? I think it's possible, if not likely.