One of the great mysteries of the 2016 primary is how so many assessments of the Republican electorate turned out to be wrong. The primary electorate that gave us Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee was dramatically different from the one that chose Mitt Romney in 2012.

Jeb Bush thought there was a huge, quiescent moderate majority nostalgic for a return to the Bush era, or looking for a doggedly inoffensive candidate like himself, blessed with endorsements from all the right people and a campaign war chest so huge it was supposed to scare other candidates out of the race. Senator Rand Paul thought the GOP's libertarian moment had arrived, driven by young voters who were deeply concerned about privacy issues in the online era and weary of interventionist foreign policy under Bush and Obama alike. Senator Marco Rubio thought he had crossover appeal to every faction of the Republican Party and so much electability that GOP voters would be crazy to turn him down.