Due to rule changes from 2012, Donald Trump can win the primary election if the rest of the GOP doesn’t act fast enough. Yes, he is a serious candidate. No, he’s not going to win the general election.

I’ll admit that I have a bit of a personal bias going into my point: I hate talking about Trump. I think that on a substantive level, his ideas are disgustingly tactless, brutishly vulgar and utterly misinformed and his very presence in the media is a negative influence on the United States. Yet the polls from CNN show he’s winning, even after the second Republican debate where the same polls show that Carly Fiorina won the debate.

So what’s the secret? He’s been offensive not only to women but to groups that vote conservatively in the primaries such as veterans, which surely should have sunk his poll numbers as devastatingly as it would sink any other candidate.

Not so this time, and there’s historical precedent that such a candidate can win with such rude tactics. Columnist Beppe Severgnini pointed out in The New York Times opinion pages that Silvio Berlusconi has won elections in Italy the same way: by playing to people’s emotions and working the crowd in election season. It’s how Berlusconi was able to become the longest serving leader in Italy since WWII.

According to Severgnini, this is why opponents cannot take Trump’s election campaign as a joke, as most of them had for far too long. Neither can they obsess over every one obscenity that he dare utters just like the media has been doing. Too much criticism over his every word allows Trump to counter them, claiming that he’s being targeted by the establishment, even if to a minor extent, their point remains. 

It’s a balancing act between over-criticizing and letting Trump run amok.

Time works against the GOP now, due to the rule changes from 2012. 

After candidate elect Mitt Romney overspent his money due to a drawn out primary with elections spanning from the winter to early summer, the GOP changed the primary election rules in order to save money for the general election when there’s a clear front runner. 

Now the primary elections are spread from February to late July, and in 10 states, delegate splits are changing from a proportional split to winner-take-all, allowing whoever is in the lead to win.

At the time, they predicted an establishment candidate would take these leads, but now Trump has the potential to make it win an early primary and represent the GOP before his campaign “runs out of steam” as many of his opponents believe. 

If others want to have a chance, they need to dismantle his campaign thoughtfully and decisively. I don’t really care if they do this. I’d love to see the faces of Republican voters when Trump has to face the likes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, if he runs or even Bernie Sanders. 

They all match up well against him in other CNN polls, and among the entire American public, Trump has gained so much name recognition that he has no more new supporters to which he can reach out while still showing a 59 percent disapproval rating, which will condemn him to a loss if the election is scandal free.