LISTEN: Political Scientists Choose Their Final Five For The GOP Nomination

John Matthews
WMAL.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE — (WMAL) Political scientists at the University of Virginia have prognosticated the 2016 GOP Presidential race, and come up with predictions for a final five list of candidates.

Donald Trump isn’t on the list.

The UVA Center for Politics believes Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Ted Cruz have the greatest chance of advancing to the nomination, given their level of fundraising, name familiarity and established political credentials, among other things.

Kyle Kondik, one of the prognosticators in the group, says Bush, Rubio and Walker have been among their frontrunners for months, but adds that Kasich and Cruz belong in the group as potential spoilers – Kasich as a moderate choice, and Cruz as a more conservative option.

Why not the Donald?

“Even though he is clearly the polling frontrunner right now, he doesn’t really fit the profile of what presidential nominees typically are,” says Kondik, who points out that Trump has not been working on the ground in either Iowa or New Hampshire as other candidates have for the past several months.

Trump is currently receiving multitudes of free media exposure that will eventually run out, and as the campaign grinds on, he’ll have to dig a lot deeper in his pocket to spend money on advertising, as well as to hire hundreds of political operatives in every state. Kondik doubts he has either the ability to organize at the necessary level, or to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to mount that kind of effort.

As for the rest, Kondik says there’s simply not enough space for them. Of Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, two non-politicians who seemed to have broken through after the first debate, Kondik says their lack of serious fundraising and inexperience at growing a political ground operation will keep them from remaining serious contenders.