Will the fight for the G.O.P. presidential nomination be Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon in the 2016 election? Not according to the best political science research.
It’s often thought that divisive primary fights damage presidential nominees in the general election. People close to Hillary Clinton endorsed this theory in a Politico article Tuesday, which reported that “a core element of Clinton’s plan was to get out of the way and let the dueling wings of the Republican Party savage each other.” In their view, Mrs. Clinton benefits from the Republicans’ “wild and messy primary contest,” which will result in “a bloodied GOP nominee.”