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My Money Is on a Trump Victory
For what it is worth: Nothing is ever certain, and much could go wrong, but my money remains on a Trump victory. Why?
1) It feels a whole lot like Reagan in ’80 and Newt in ’94.
Reagan was disliked by the establishment (who liked Baker or Bush), viewed with suspicion by professional conservatives (they liked Phil Crane, not a divorced, former Democrat, big spending governor), and regarded with condescension by the media and left (who saw him as stupid and a dangerous cowboy). Those camps could not fathom the breadth and depth of his popular momentum.
Ditto the GOP taking the House in ’94 – I was on CNN five weeks prior to that election, and produced outright guffaws and rolled eyes from everyone when I said that the GOP would win not just the Senate, but take the House. The signs were all there but because the idea seemed so preposterous, they couldn’t see.
More recently Matt Bevin was left for dead by most of the smart money in his race for KY governor, and Brexit was “sure” not to pass. Trump is an extension of that zeitgeist for many – a long awaited reclaiming of control of their lives, of their country, of their self-identity.
2) Who are you going to believe, polls or your lying eyes?
I started asking people in the spring for whom they were voting. A surprisingly large percentage of not-supposed-to-be-a-Trump-supporter types turned out to be exactly that. That includes rich and highly educated people, women, blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims. A bunch of anecdotes, but interesting.
Everyone keeps saying this election is about Trump. But I have come to believe it really is about his supporters, who to a person are deeply versed in all his flaws and faults and support him regardless. For them, this is about one or more of the following:
- deep antipathy for Hillary and all she represents and would do,
- disappointment with a broken system they feel has ignored and in some cases harmed them for years, or
- a reclaiming of the country and their own lives and personhood.
They genuinely love and worry about their country and they want to feel proud again to be an American.
3) If what got incinerated was a phoenix, don’t bet against it rising.
If you’ve seen someone succeed at something five or six or nine times, how smart is it to bet they won’t do it the 10th time? How many times was seemingly everyone sure that Trump was finished – only he came back stronger than before? Many of us missed, time and again, the meta messages Trump was sending that galvanize his support and many miss it still.
4) Stages of Grief
For two-thirds of GOP voters, Trump wasn’t just another candidate – he was the one potentially viable candidate they feared. So with Trump triumphant, enter the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, each at his or her own pace.
You can tell many are at that nadir of depression by the way those who are the most depressed about Trump interpret Trump. Having a predisposition, as understandable as it might be, can hinder our understanding of what is happening. If someone starts with the assumption that Trump is ignorant, stupid, or dangerous, it rules out considering the possibility that comments like “founders of ISIS” could simply be brilliant hyperbole.
In contrast, allowing the idea that Trump is actually as smart as his overall track record, even discounted, indicates, permits the perspective that his repeated “gaffes” are purposeful, and a calculated strategy to garner millions of dollars in free media, wherein his larger point gets made for him, over and over. That’s no mean feat in a media environment stacked in favor of the left and Democrats and against conservatives and any GOP nominee.
5) It’s still summer.
I have found that many folks who are normally GOP voters but who are unhappy about Trump largely fall into two camps. The first are those who object because Trump isn’t solidly, reliably conservative on their priority issues. The second are those who, at bottom, find Trump personally objectionable, as does almost everyone they know, so they feel that the prospect of supporting him would violate the way they see themselves and wish to have others think of them.
These are real concerns that even many Trump supporters say they have worked through. But if folks are hitting despair in August, that means they have September and October to move to acceptance. Why would they? Because Hillary’s presidency and all it implies will become so much more real.
Between the choice of someone who will get pretty much every policy decision wrong, versus someone who might get some of them right, more and more people who presently can’t see voting for Trump will decide that on the “lesser of two evils” spectrum, they will be a Trump voter, even if they are not a Trump supporter.
One cannot discount the barrage of negative ads that will come against Trump. And who knows what new revelations will shift the ground yet again? But particularly with increasing Clinton pay-to-play revelations, if by early October the social opprobrium shifts from “how could I possibly support him?” to “how could I possibly enable her?”, Republicans will win the presidency.
Published in General
I don’t understand, no one I know voted for Nixon…
Heather –
I used to be in love with you.
Now I worship you as a Goddess.
[Pause to genuflect and spread rose petals about Her feet.]
I only wish I could express my adoration in a more fulsome manner . . . forgive your humble servant for his inadequacy.
This is what I was thinking the whole time reading the thread. Who could play a similar role to the Reagan Democrats? Although I support the Trump immigration pivot, I don’t think it will draw too many Hispanic voters for Trump. I suppose it might weaken turnout for Hilary if Hispanic voters are less worried about a Trump presidency.
Bot here. Care to take a crack at getting to 270?
That’s kind of unfair at this point, but it’s really not that hard to envision a scenario where Trump could win. It’s a lot harder when one tries to break things down and show how he does win.
Right now it is all conjecture. We do have a Major Premise but we all lack facts to be applied to the premise so any conclusion is going to be faulty.
Thanks for this article, Heather. I see a lot of Trump support here in PA and the Dems here certainly have their hackles up here, so they are feeling the pinch finally.
I wonder what extra voters will turn out if NR comes out with an “Against Hillary” issue?
I hope they have the prescience to be developing one right now.
Exactly how would an electoral college prediction support or dispute Heather’s thesis? You simply want to substitute a different thesis, which is that it’s mathematically impossible for Trump to win in the electoral college. That’s a fine thesis to postulate, but it’s logically incomprehensible to critique her argument because it doesn’t resolve your question.
This article by Michael Barone doesn’t really take a side, but, like much of what Barone does on elections and political demographics, it’s very good.
I do want to substitute a different way to arriving at an answer to the same question. I’ll cop to that. And I’ll admit my way doesn’t rely on whether 2016 “feels like” 1980. If the point is that counting electoral votes at this point is a subjective exercise, I can live with that.
This is how cynical I am: I believe the fix is in! The Left is thiiiiiiiiis close to bringing the USA down for good and I don’t believe for a second they are going to leave the coup de grace to chance. I think we are going to see electoral shenanigans the likes of which we have never seen; the likes of which we never thought possible in a constitutional republic. Lawfare, warfare, voter-fraud (which I’m told doesn’t exist), any-means-necessary! THAT’S how cynical I am!
Bonus: I don’t think Hillary is going to make it to November! Health, emails, something will cause her to drop out and Biden will be on the ballot instead. Which I believe has been the plan all along. Obama wants history to view him as the anti-Reagan; his administration a repudiation of all-things-Reagan. And having his vice-president succeed him, just as Reagan’s did, would be the icing on the cake.
What we need now is for the Dems to do a few stupid things that don’t necessarily depend on being prosecuted for criminal acts but are publicly convincing of criminal intent.
Thanks for your summary. Many of us didn’t realize the depth of DJT’s depravity.
So, it’s an uphill battle to defeat the left, thus we should decamp the battlefield? Fie!
He doesn’t “fight.” He calls people names, concocts absurd conspiracy theories (Obama was born in Kenya, Cruz’s dad killed JFK) and he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.
Yeah, I’ll probably vote for him, but if it were any other democrat running, I’d be writing in my own name instead.
Name one thing, forget the conservative part……..
The point is that your response to Heather’s nearly 900-word essay (to summarize: ‘But you didn’t provide a guess as to how the electoral college will work out 74-days from now’) is a non sequitur.
OK, I’ll bite, if for no other reason than to end this type of reductionist question.
He will appoint judges like Scalia. His list of candidates is sound.
He thinks a nation should have actual borders.
He approves of following the law.
He has a backbone, unlike most politicians.
He hates what the Satanish cult of Democrat pukes has done to the black and otherwise poor, mistreated underclass.
Enough.
Capitalism beats socialism every day of the week. Completely. Always.
Watch out, Heather! It’s dangerous to cross Hillary’s narrative and desire for more third-world miscreants.
Justice Department will probe
metro Phoenix sheriff Arpaio
Associated Press, by Walter Berry
@columbo: I understand the analogy construct of the article, but there is hard data available that suggests Heather’s analysis is purely anectdotal and thus limited.
Sure, one can concede polls will shift as time goes on–I do! I do!!–but if one is trying to fit this square peg into the round hole context of 1980, there are real differences that should be acknowledged. The hard data associated with Trump is much, much, much different from that associated with Reagan.
Respectfully, I also noticed you answered @heatherhiggins‘ challenge of “name a conservative thing” about Trump with capitalism. Okay, but Trump projects a deep suspicion for the free market as he has embraced the talking points of Bernie Sanders. When he says capitalism, he doesn’t mean free enterprise. Since conservatives are the first AND the second, I’m not sure how the term addresses Heather’s concerns at all. If Trump had a D behind his name instead of an R, his version of capitalism would make more sense to me.
A critique that states a preference for data is a nonsequitur? I think that I answered this above, but it was unfortunately truncated in your response.
It really depends which system you are heading up. Capitalists face competition so it’s a bit risky. Socialists simply cream the wealth off the top.
He walked that list back, or started to, the day he promulgated it.
Didn’t he just put that question up to a vote with the studio audience of The Donald Trump Show (with Sean Hannity)?
See above.
That pretzel stick? He switched sides on H1-B visas three times in twenty four hours.
That is a good one. Unfortunately, it’s only about two weeks old so it’s kind of early for him to have switched that position yet. If he had started it a year ago, it would have been better, but he had to use all that time telling us about his yuge rallies, and how we are going to win so much we’ll be sick of winning, and how big his hands are …
What he didn’t do is send the Alt-Right back to the outer darkness of their mothers’ basements where they belong.
He supported Kelo. Has he reversed that little clown play yet?
Whatever statement, position or policy that you condemn Trump about, Hillary is FAR worse.
Kelo is but one example.
Its an interesting argument but I’m not convinced. Partially because I’m just very skeptical, but I don’t get Point 2. The majority of polls on RCP politics puts Hillary ahead. I, and a lot of people on the net went through this with Obama v Romney: “The polls are wrong. There is a hidden well of Romney support that will overflow on election day.” And it didn’t happen. So the response seems to be “well I talked to a lot of people.” But isn’t that what the polls did? Why would they systematically underreport to the pollsters but not to Heather? In any case, her poll would be an outlier.
The probably are a lot of people looking for an excuse to not vote for Hillary, but Trump won’t get out of his own way. So, yes, its still early, but I sincerely doubt all the polls are wrong. Trump has been deeply unpopular for a while, even compared to Hillary, and I see no reason to expect that change barring something major. But then, that wouldn’t really have anything to do with Trump supporters, but rather, some drastic world event.
The record is absolutely crystal … that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities unleashed by a free enterprise system … Milton Friedman
His surrogates believe. They believed him yesterday when he said we were at war with Eurasia, and they believe him again today when he says we are at war with Eastasia.