That may be true, but there were five or six of the other 16 Republican candidates that polled far better against Hillary than Trump did - yet Trump supporters would not consider them because they had a "softer stand" on the illegal immigrant problem.
For years now, the "Alt Right", or whatever you want to call them, has been busy working to bring down any GOP politician who even hints at the idea of legalizing any percentage of those here illegally as a solution to the issue of the millions of people here illegally. They've been clamoring for deportation, and nothng less will do.
We will never round up and deport 11+ million people.
Let me say that again.
We will never round up and deport 11+ million people.It's not that we don't want to, but rather than even if we actually wanted to, it would be logistically and (possibly) so legally burdensome and complex that it would never actually happen.
Some people don't want to hear that. But the fact that they don't want to hear it (believe it) makes it no less the objective truth.
Comes Trump, and he fires all those people up with talk of deporting 11+ million people in under two years, and building the Great Wall of Donald.
Either he was too clueless to understand that deporting 11+ million people not only was an impossibility, but an even greater impossibility within the time frame he promised, or he's a bold-faced liar.
Now that he's actually having to face the reality of the situation, he's coming around to the realization that the Gang of Eight Bill wasn't such a bad bill, and just like that, he drops all talk of deporting 11+ million people in under two years, and begins a soft-shoe shuffle to reality.
His supporters are not truly interested in reality. They like FR-style memes and slogans, and Trump just threw a change at them that they will never be able to accept.
As you said... there were a number of GOP candidates who could have beaten Hillary, but the Alt Right chose instead to hand her the victory by way of their support for the ONE candidate who would clearly lose to her.