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Conventional Denial: Pundits were confident Trump was never, ever, ever getting nominated [1]

['Jim Naureckas', 'Robert Grant']

Date: 2016-06-01 18:57:16+00:00

Trump has a better chance of cameoing in another Home Alone movie with Macaulay Culkin—or playing in the NBA Finals—than winning the Republican nomination.

—Harry Enten (FiveThirtyEight, 6/16/15)

You cannot and do not win anything when your numbers look like Trump’s. I can’t say it any more clearly than that…. Trump has every right to run. This is a democracy after all. But what he should not get is covered as though this is an even-close-to-serious attempt to either win the Republican nomination or influence the conversation in GOP circles in any significant way. It’s not.

—Chris Cillizza (Washington Post, 6/17/15)

Despite the hyperventilating of recent days, Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee. Period. Full stop.

—James Hohmann and Elise Viebeck (Washington Post, 7/3/15)

The chance of his winning nomination and election is exactly zero…. Any story based on the premise that Trump has any chance of becoming the nominee, let alone the president, is a disservice to the reader.

—James Fallows (Atlantic, 7/13/15)

This reporter is already on record pledging to eat a bag of rusty nails if the real estate tycoon with the high hair manages to snag the GOP nomination, much less takes down likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton next fall.

—Ben White (CNBC, 7/17/16)

I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. The crash-and-burn phase of his embryonic campaign has not yet arrived—but it will.

—Michael A. Cohen (Boston Globe, 7/18/15)

Our emphatic prediction is simply that Trump will not win the nomination. It’s not even clear that he’s trying to do so.

—Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight, 8/11/15)

If Trump is nominated, then everything we think we know about presidential nominations is wrong.

—Larry Sabato (Sabato’s Crystal Ball, 8/17/15)

Trump has a brilliant strategy for winning the loyalty of a quarter of the primary electorate, or perhaps a third. He has no strategy for winning a majority, which is what you need to get the nomination…. If the campaign gets to the point where there is one candidate left standing against Trump, that candidate will enjoy the unified support of the party’s financial, media and organizational strength. Trump has the power to destroy, but not to conquer.

—Jonathan Chait (New York magazine, 8/26/15)

I just can’t take Trump that seriously. He is not going to be president. He’s not going to be the Republican nominee. He’s probably not going to hurt the eventual nominee’s chances of winning. Trump is an existential threat to the weakest primary candidates—but not to anybody else.

—Ramesh Ponnuru (Bloomberg View, 8/28/15)

The entire commentariat is going to feel a little silly when Marco Rubio wins every Republican primary.

—New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (Twitter, 9/25/15).

I stand by my prediction that Trump won’t win one Republican primary.

—Ed Rogers (Washington Post, 9/30/15)

I’m so certain Trump won’t win the nomination that I’ll eat my words if he does. Literally: The day Trump clinches the nomination, I will eat the page on which this column is printed in Sunday’s Post.

—Dana Milbank (Washington Post, 10/4/15)

In short, everything we know about how presidential nominations work says Trump isn’t going to be the nominee, or even come close.

—Jonathan Bernstein (Bloomberg View, 10/19/15)

No, Donald Trump Won’t Win

—headline over David Brooks column (New York Times, 12/4/16)

Donald Trump isn’t going to be the Republican nominee.

—Ross Douthat (New York Times, 1/7/16)

Yes, Trump Will Implode. Here’s Why

—headline over David Roberts column (Vox, 1/8/16)

Pundits who underestimated Trump’s potential last autumn have been hesitant to come out and state what has now become apparent: He is probably not going to be the Republican nominee after all.

—Jacob Weisberg (Slate, 4/8/16)

hat tip: The Intercept (5/4/16), Politico (5/4/16), @blippoblappo (Twitter)

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