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politics and politicians Title: Can Trump Win with New Voters? David Plouffe tells a great story in his book about the 2008 Obama campaign, The Audacity to Win. Team Obama knew that if there was a typical turnout among Democrats on Iowa’s caucus night, they could not beat Hillary Clinton. Their only chance was to identify voters who did not typically participate in caucuses and persuade them to attend. On caucus night, Team Obama took one look at the turnout across the state and knew they had won even before the final results were even tallied. Nearly 239,000 people voted that night, about double the historic Democratic turnout. They won by approximately 8 points. The rest is history. Eight years later, Republicans may have their own version of the Obama campaign in the form of Donald Trump. He’s the only candidate with anything like Obama’s celebrity appeal — and knack for reaching voters who don’t normally go to the polls. With 46 days until the first ballots are cast in Iowa, here’s where this race stands right now: Donald Trump is the favorite to win either Iowa or New Hampshire. With the numbers that he’s been getting, it’s increasingly unlikely that he won’t win at least one of them. At that point, we could be treated to the hilarious sight of a panicked GOP establishment actually trying to cause the thing they fear most every four years: a protracted primary campaign, maybe even one that runs all the way to a bloody convention in Cleveland. The defining question of the next six weeks is: Will the Trump supporters actually come out and vote? One reason state polling has been so volatile is because pollsters don’t agree on the best method of deciding who should be in the sample. A large pool of Trump’s backers aren’t showing up in some of the primary polls we are seeing because they do not usually vote in GOP primaries. That’s why if Trump wins the nomination, it’s going to be Pearl Harbor for the consulting class: the “experts” will never see it coming because many of their poll samples don’t include these new voters. Let’s think about Iowa for a second: Around 120,000 Republican caucus-goers voters voted in 2012. Longtime Iowa activists will tell you that about one-third of caucus-goers are typically first timers, and we don’t fully know where they come from. In New Hampshire, about 250,000 voters turned out in 2012. Voters of any party are allowed to vote in the GOP primary there. So what happens if a bunch of Democrats who think Hillary is inevitable (or just want to mess with the GOP) come in and vote for Trump? It wouldn’t take too many of them to seriously change the math in a field this large. Consensus today is that Ted Cruz is in the driver’s seat in Iowa. The thinking is that support for some of the anti-establishment also-rans will coalesce around Cruz in mid to late January and he’ll have Iowa locked up. That’s probably correct — as long as only the typical GOP electorate shows up. That’s where Trump has to change the math. His strategy should be to pull off the same kind of moonshot that Obama did. He needs every guy in Iowa and New Hampshire with a gun rack on his truck and a subscription to Juggs magazine to go vote. That doesn’t typically happen. But if it does, look out. Here’s an even scarier thought: It’s possible that the polls are actually understating Trump’s strength. There have been well-documented cases in the past where voters were embarrassed to tell pollsters they were supporting a candidate but still voted for him on Election Day. Jesse Helms was left for dead more than once by pollsters and won anyway. Ironically, the smartest thing Trump and his unconventional campaign could do would be to get very conventional right now — by putting a modest amount of money into identifying and turning out new voters who don’t usually participate in early-primary states. If Team Trump does the basic blocking and tackling that regular campaigns do, they could be hard to stop. There’s no way to know if they’ll actually do it, but it’s worth noting that Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is a former Americans for Prosperity state director. That means he knows a thing or two about grassroots organizing. Coming off a victory in one of the first two states, Trump could be unbeatable precisely because he will have won by turning out a new coalition loyal only to him. In that scenario, Trump would have the momentum to keep getting 30 percent of the vote in primaries across the country — and as long as the field stays even a little fractured, that’s more than enough to win handily in proportional early states and keep rolling up victories in winner-take-all states. Pretty soon, the media would be treating him as the putative GOP nominee. At that point, all hell breaks loose. Is this likely? No. Is it possible? Absolutely. Stay tuned. Things might be about to get weird. Poster Comment: Trump will try to copy the Obama playbook and turn out a new base of voters in Iowa, voters that won't show up on any pollster's radar until caucus night. Cruz is trying to create the usual coalition that wins the GOP caucus vote in Iowa, pretty successfully so far. He has the usual evangelicals and anti-immigrant types pretty much unified behind him. There will be increasing pressure from the GOPe to get the other GOPe candidates to drop out of the race before Iowa so they can unify behind Rubio. Otherwise, the GOP will be looking at a battle between Trump and Cruz all the way to the convention. Their worst nightmare. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
#3. To: TooConservative (#0)
Some of the pundits call Trump supporters in Iowa 'Walmart voters'. They supposedly like his leadership attributes,tell-it-like-it-is style ,and business acumen....and of course his anti-immigrant positions. Guess they haven't thought through things like his trade and wage policies. He takes the correct position on minimum wages (opposes them ) ;but Walmart is at the forefront of the finger waggers who complain that the minimum wage should be higher .And it's not just minimum wages .... in the November debate Trump said American wages are too high . "We are a country that is being beaten on every front — economically, militarily," "Taxes too high, wages too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world ... People have to go out, they have to work really hard, and they have to get into that upper stratum." His trade polices by necessity would drive up the costs of goods that Walmart sells .Most of their clientele go there because of the low prices . So I puzzle how Trump's policies would be good for the 'Walmart voter '.
His trade policies are the opposite of Obama and Clinton. It is traditional American trade policies. You're with Hillary and Barack Obama on trade. Trump is for America and not China. Free trade has cost us millions of jobs for the benefit of the few. I guess you're to the left of most Americans on this issue. You don't give a crap that it costs Americans many more jobs then it creates. Can you say dumb as a rock?
BINGO ! The only people that favored "Free Trade" were always: Stupid people that thought it would lower their cost of living with no negative repercussions People that were in occupations that would not be in danger of being damaged, such as college professors, govt employees, media elites, investors, etc. And, those that wanted to mold the USA to bring about the NWO. I grew up in the 50's & 60's before "free trade". The area I was in had very low unemployment, with good jobs. Min wage jobs of the time were high school boys working at grocery stores & gas stations, etc. Everyone was doing fine. Most families got by OK with just Dad working, Mom could stay home and raise the kids. Then we had " Dime Stores ". Now we have " Dollar Stores ". Back then a single dime was worth 10 cents. Now a single dime (pre 64 is worth $1.02. In 1965, a brand new Ford Mustang sticker price was around $2400.00. Today, it is over $30,000.00. I guess soon we will have $10.00 or $20.00 stores. When the first McDonalds came to our town, you could get a hamburger, small FF's, and a small coke, hand them two quarters, and get change back. Today, 50 cents won't buy you FF's And they say we have low inflation? BS !! It was all just another part of the path to the globalist NWO. F Free Trade, and f those that gave it to us. May they all burn in hell.
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