Romney and Trump
By 
Without at all questioning Nate Silver’s statistical analysis, it has seemed to me in the last year that he has been getting a bit high on that Beltway supply, wanting to believe that the reality of the Republican Party is not really the reality of the Republican Party. This is the latest moment I’ve felt this way.
Gonna be pretty epic when Romney primary-challenges Trump. https://t.co/0lE7SzmQCI
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 4, 2017
No, it’s not going to be epic. What possible reason is there to think that the Republican primary voters want Mitt Romney to replace Donald Trump? There’s plenty of reason to think that Beltway people would like this. Those are not Republican primary voters. I know Romney loathes Trump, even more so after Trump is pressuring Orrin Hatch to run again so he doesn’t have to deal with Mitt in the Senate. But then what does Mitt in the Senate look like? He’s Jeff Flake, taking a big game about integrity while voting for 99% of Trump’s legislative and judicial agenda. And then if he does run for president in 2020, he might beat Trump in New Hampshire. Maybe. But who sees those Dutch Calvinist fundamentalists in rural Iowa and white supremacists in South Carolina choosing Romney over Trump, no matter how unpoular the latter is nationally? It’s a pipe dream. The Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump and there is no getting around this. There would be no epic battle in 2020. Trump would wipe the floor with him and then insult him for years on Twitter. Period.