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turnout (Gray and Spangler). Secondly, while other primaries had clear front runners with
chances of winning over half the delegates to become the party’s nominees, the 2016 primaries
are still considered less likely to produce an outright nominee. Instead, party officials have
pointed out that there is likely to be a contested convention in Cleveland where delegates are
allowed to change their votes in order to give one candidate the majority of votes (Lewis). The
last time the party held a contested convention was in the 1976 race between Ronald Regan and
incumbent president Gerald Ford (Lewis). Further, Republicans are facing a populist revolt
against the party’s establishment. Senator Ted Cruz has been defined as a radical politician who
rarely votes with his party while Donald Trump has been riding on the populist wave with the
promise of making America great again (Collinson).
The issue of immigration has dominated the politics of the GOP primaries. Donald
Trump tapped into immigration when he claimed that as president he would stop Syrian Muslim
immigrants from accessing the USA (Gomez). He continued to state that he would build a wall
on the USA-Mexican border to stop illegal migrants from taking away jobs from Americans.
(Roberts) Ted Cruz capitalized on the economic insecurities of white-collar job holders in an ad
by painting a gleam picture of the negative impact of immigration if immigrants were skilled
laborers who would drive down salaries due to increased competition (Grier). Due to the
attention the issue of immigration has attracted, all the candidates have tried to outshine one
another with their immigration policies.
Overall, as the July convention approaches, Republican primary voters continue to
witness the most interesting race in recent times. All outcomes possible in the race prove to have
a twist in them. A win for the current frontrunners would place an antiestablishment candidate as
the Republican nominee while an upset would be considered one of the greatest political
