Back on June 19, 2015, conservative columnist Ann Coulter nearly a year before Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump emerged as the party’s likely presumptive nominee, said that Trump (of all the declared candidates at the time) had the best shot of winning this year’s presidential general election.
Coulter, in an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time” during the show’s “Overtime” segment, said Trump had the best shot, but also gave an edge to former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), the 2012 GOP nominee, in the election.
Romney never announced his intentions to make a run for the White House this election cycle.
Partial transcript as follows:
MAHER: OK, here we are. Ann, which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning the general election?
COULTER: Of the declared ones? Right now, Donald Trump.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
MAHER: What about of all of them? Scott Walker?
COULTER: Fake laughter from the audience.
MAHER: Scott Walker, would you say?
COULTER: Of the ones who aren’t declared? Romney/Walker is my ticket.
MAHER: But last time you said if we nominate Romney, we’ll definitely lose.
COULTER: And I was right. But that was two years in advance and it was – well, third time is a charm for Reagan. It was because it is very hard to take out an incumbent. And the reason I supported [Chris] Christie back then, and I don’t now was because he’s so flashy and idiosyncratic. We were probably going to lose but the only shot we had was the wildly idiosyncratic guy. I think Romney would crush Hillary.
MAHER: I would do anything for Trump-Christie.
COULTER: If you ran Bernie Sanders, it would be much tougher.
MAHER: Bernie Sanders?
COULTER: Yeah.
MAHER: You think would be a better candidate than Hillary?
COULTER: Yeah.
MAHER: Because he would excite the base.
COULTER: Because he cares about the American middle class, working class. Hillary doesn’t. She cares about the Chamber of Commerce.
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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