With the Republican Party, history shows the man who came in second in the prior Republican primary becomes the nominee. We saw this since the 1970′s. In the 1976 Republican primary, Ford beat Reagan in the Republican primary. Ford went on to lose to Carter in the general election. Four years later Ronald Reagan ran again for the Republican primary against George H.W. Bush. Reagan ended up winning that nomination and selected Bush has his Vice President. Reagan went on to defeat Carter in a landslide. In 1984 Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in another landslide. In 1988 George H.W. Bush ran for the Republican party nomination against Bob Dole. Bush ended up winning that election and went on to win the Presidency against Michael Dukakis. Four years later George H.W. Bush ran for reelection and lost to Bill Clinton. In 1996 Bob Dole ran for the Republican nomination. He ended up losing to Bill Clinton. In 2000 George W. Bush won the Republican nomination. He broke the trend because he did not run in any past Presidential elections. He defeated John McCain. In 2004 Bush ran for reelection and defeated John Kerry. In 2008 John McCain ran again against Mitt Romney in the Republican nomination. He won the Republican nomination and lost to Barack Obama. Now we are up to election 2012. Mitt Romney ran for the Republican nomination. When it came to the primary’s his top two opponents were Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Romney beat both of them and ended up losing to Barack Obama.
In 2016 Democrats have a different story. Their only hope is Hillary Clinton. If she does not run who’s left? Joe Biden, enough said. Andrew Cuomo, the little known New York governor that makes bills that already exist, and creates a gun regulation bill that regulates police weaponry by accident because they forgot to read it before they passed it. They also have Martin O’malley, who? Yes I said Martin O’malley. The governor from Maryland that nobody ever heard of. I call him Martin O’malley who.
Election 2016, Republicans clearly have the upper hand as long as Hillary does not run.