Donald Trump‘s campaign could end in either triumph or a tailspin, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday night.
“I think [Trump] has the biggest upside and the biggest downside of any candidate I’ve ever seen,” Gingrich, who supports Trump, told Colorado’s 9NEWS on Tuesday. “If everything works right, he will be an amazing historic figure. If everything works wrong, he’ll be worse than Goldwater. And I don’t think we have any idea right now which version is going to show up.”
Those are iffy words from a man said to be among possible vice presidential choices for the Republican candidate.
Barry Goldwater was the Republican presidential candidate in 1964. He was on the bad end of a historic defeat, winning just six states against Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, agreed with Gingrich about the unpredictability of the upcoming race.
“To celebrate any presidential election as a done deal is an incredibly foolish thing to do,” Dean said. “Anything can happen in a presidential race. I can assure you that the Clinton campaign is taking Donald Trump very seriously.”
These two aren’t the only ones who believe it’s too early to make a definitive call. In response to a handful of early polls making headlines this week, Nate Silver, a statistician and editor-in-chief of data-journalism site FiveThirtyEight, felt the need to remind the country how early we are in the general-election process.
1. For fuck's sake, America. You're going to make go on a rant about general election polls — in May?
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 10, 2016
2. The data is consistent with Clinton having a ~6% nat'l lead over Trump. It's early. Trump could win. Also, he could lose in a landslide.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 10, 2016
3. State polls are broadly consistent with that ~6% Clinton lead + noise + house effects. Not nearly enough data to say more than that.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 10, 2016
On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still campaigning against Sen. Bernie Sanders—despite Clinton’s overwhelming delegate lead—while Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee last week.