On the flagship podcast some weeks ago, Bob Costa explained Donald Trump’s theory of the 2016 election. Among the country’s large body of nonvoters, Trump sees disaffected Americans who are disgusted by both parties. He believes his nationalist, populist message will resonate and bring waves of them to the polls. In fact, he believes he can bring them out in such numbers that he can afford to lose the votes of the limited-government, Tea Party, Reaganite Republicans who heretofore composed the GOP base. Costa’s reporting is corroborated by that of others, and bolstered by Trump’s own public statements. (“There were statements made about me — those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we serve two terms…. Honestly, there are some people I really don’t want.” Regarding party unity: “I don’t think it’s necessary; people will be voting for me and not for the party.”)

So is Trump’s strategy correct? Recent opinion polls suggest not. He is behind nationally, in swing states, and even in former GOP bastions. He claimed he would put states like NY in play; instead, he is 30 points behind there. The signs are clear: Trump has lost more Republicans than voters he has brought in. Jettisoning Reagan Republicans in favor of Reagan Democrats would appear to have been a strategic miscalculation.

At the outset of the campaign, many commentators and Ricochet members considered Trump’s strategy eminently plausible. Trump, they claimed, was a different kind of candidate, with a media savvy the others lacked. He could reach new voters by “disrupting the narrative” and bending the media to his will, inducing them to cover the stories he desires. In a sense, he has done just this, though not in the manner his supporters had hoped. His outrageous newsmaking has repeatedly distracted the media from Hillary’s deepening scandals: using racial language to criticize the judge on the Trump University case, starting a spat with parents of a Gold Star recipient, making bad jokes about Russian espionage and armed insurrection, calling for tribute from NATO members before honoring our treaty obligations, insisting that Obama “founded ISIS,” and more. In view of Trump’s daily whining about media treatment, however, it would appear that relying on his ability to generate positive attention for conservative causes — among them Hillary’s corruption — was a fairly large strategic miscalculation.