Donald Trump appears close to invincible in the early Republican primaries and caucuses, but his strength among general election voters remains unclear.
Considering current polling, his current level of support is terrifyingly close to enough. If we don't want to face down four more years of Trump, Biden really needs a lot better campaigning than, "I'm not that guy." Sure, it's still early and the predictive power of polls at this stage isn't fantastic. But, it seems like a bad place to be starting from.
We can only hope the people who said they wouldn't vote for him, due to having various final judgments against him, will have the conviction to hold to that claim.
We're in an era of populism and people are still trying to use the 2000s era to predict today.
He doesn't need to wide. his base, he just needs to motivate them. He need to to get more people excited about voting for him than Biden does those excited to vote Biden.
It's about turnout and driving a base. He's wiping the floor with Biden right now in the polls. No one is excited to vote Biden. It's not clear to me he even has a base. Instead taking heads are just trying to browbeat any one left of center into supporting Biden. It won't work at scale. Bidens got to do his own work there, because it's not currently Trump in office, it's Biden. Always harder for an incumbent, especially one who has become deeply unpopular with the coalition of voters that out him into office. No amount of blue no matter who is going to fix Biden as a candidate. Only Biden can do that.
We already hit the point decades ago where GOP can't win a federal election without anti democratic institutions like gerrymandering and the electoral college. It needs to be replaced with something actually functional in leading government in policy supporting constituents to compete with DNC. I detest political parties, but the only thing worse than many parties is one party.
The danger has never been trump gaining voters, it's that Biden is so shit and ignoring the majority of Dem voters that it might depress turnout so much Trump's base could be enough like it was in 2016.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump appears close to invincible in the Republican primaries and caucuses, but despite his commanding victories, the front-runner’s strength among general election voters remains unclear.
It also highlights a Republican party that has made an about-face on central policy issues, favoring some big government programs and retreating from commitments abroad.
So far, almost all of Trump’s backing has come from white voters, who made up the vast majority of the electorate in the first few head-to-head Republican contests — even in diverse South Carolina.
Trump also maintained high levels of support with evangelical Christians and people living in small towns and rural areas, groups that have significant weight within Republican primaries but comprise a smaller share of the general electorate.
Instead, Republican primary voters strongly support domestic policies that require significant government investment, like maintaining the current age of 67 for Social Security eligibility and building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
In the lead-up to the primaries, Republican candidates clashed over these issues, testing whether long-held GOP positions like shrinking the size of entitlement programs and taking a strong hand in foreign conflicts still resonate with the party’s base.
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It also highlights a Republican party that has made an about-face on central policy issues, favoring some big government programs and retreating from commitments abroad.
That's a strange take on history. Of course many Republican politicains have said "focus on the homeland" or whatever while voting for wars, so the stated positions aren't really changing, and I don't imagine that Trump would be anti-war anyway. And big government is also a Republican thing. I can point to specific examples, but we all know about them, so why bother?
Anyway, it's hard for politics writers, no doubt, but this is basic historical knowledge. They can do better.