The GOP will likely nominate a candidate with little to no major public office experience

1) Reliability of early pollsWhile polls this early in an election year certainly dont have much accuracy in determining the eventual winner of a primary race, they still are fairly accurate when it comes to indicating who has the absolute least support. Last election at this time, the people with the least amount of support in the polls were Tim Pawlenty and Thaddeus McCotter, who ultimately became the first two candidates to drop out. https://en.wikipedia.org...Also when looking at the 2012 GOP race, just about every major poll had Mitt Romney in the lead, the eventual nominee, prior to September. So while polling early on in the election may not be entirely accurate, they do have some success in predicting the eventual winner, and they are far more reliable when it comes to measuring those with the least support as well. https://en.wikipedia.org...This means that polling this early in the season DOES guess fairly well who will be the next candidates to drop out of the race, and current polling heavily suggests that the next few people who will drop out of the race are candidates who have substantial experience in major public office (Graham, Santorum, Pataki, Gilmore, Jindal). 2) 'The Party Elite Decides'"The book/research concludes Candidates cannot win without endorsements by the party elite. "One book saying that candidates cannot with without the approval of the party elite doesn't make it factual. Look at the GOP voting base, they HATE the 'party establishment' right now, that's one of the big reasons why people who are not a part of the GOP establishment (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Cruz) have a combined voting base of 58%, while those who these 'party elite' would be more likely to support combined only have about 35% of the vote, with 9% of voters still being undecided....The 'party elite' does provide funding to candidates, which is important sure, but Donald Trump is a literal BILLIONAIRE, and Carly Fiorina has a net worth of $59 million, more than any other GOP candidate other than Trump. http://presidential-candidates.insidegov.com...There are candidates who can finance their own campaigns using their own wealth who are not dependent on courting the approval of 'the party elite' in order to keep their campaigns going... Ross Perot financed his own presidential campaign, didnt even belong to a party, and still got nearly 20% of the popular vote, which would never have happened if the 'party elite' were the ones who decided who gets nominatedhttps://en.wikipedia.org...You also have debates which play a HUGE factor in determining who does well in the polls. Look at Scott Walker. Scott Walker was an ideal candidate who the 'elite establishment' would approve of. He had a huge lead in Iowa for months, but after two shoddy debate performances, his voter base dropped down to LITERALLY 0%http://www.slate.com...This guy was the choice of the Koch brothers for president as well. Scott Walker was their guy. And after two debate performances, his entire voting base went up in thin air, whereas Carly Fiorina's voter base grew substantially. This wouldnt have happened if your claim that 'party elite' chooses candidates and the people do not were somehow true. http://www.huffingtonpost.com...You also have to factor in that SuperPacs allow candidates to better finance their campaigns without relying on the party elite. Some candidates are perfectly capable of funding their own campaigns and therefore do not need the approval of the elite, the GOP voting base has an anti-establishment mentality, debates hold more influence in making or breaking candidates and their campaigns as evidenced by the spectacular crashing of the Koch-brothers funded Scott Walker, and a change in campaign finance rules allow candidates to seek money from outside the 'establishment elite' to fund their campaign. The party elite simply does NOT control who is elected, at least not anymore. The game has simply changed. 3) "In short, polls are useless, and the party elite choose the candidate, not the people"Out of all the candidates polling below 5% of the vote, ALL OF THEM are candidates who the 'party elite' would favor. Out of all candidates currently polling at >5% of the vote. 4 candidates have 0 or close to 0 experience, and only 2 candidates have 4 or more years of experience. Its simply statistically probable that the winner of the GOP primary will be an 'outsider', and con's argument that it wont be is based purely on conspiracy theory that 'the elite' will not let such a thing happen