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Will Donald Trump become President? There's no need to panic just yet

Statistically there are two massive uphill struggles facing the Republican nominee that he must overcome to win

Amy Walter
Friday 27 May 2016 16:08 BST
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Donald Trump speaks at a rally on May 25, 2016 in Anaheim, California
Donald Trump speaks at a rally on May 25, 2016 in Anaheim, California

Donald Trump’s unexpected primary victory has led many to reassess his prospects for the general election. After all, he won a major party nomination without doing all the things that campaigns are "supposed" to do - polling, data analytics, fundraising and traditional campaign operations.

Why can’t we assume he upends the fundamentals in November as well? Before we talk of disrupting the fundamentals or the assumptions of 2016, it’s best to take a serious look at what they are and what they mean.

1. A primary is different from a general election

This is both the most obvious and least appreciated factor in this contest. Compared to the general voting population, the GOP electorate is overwhelmingly white (90 per cent) and disproportionately male. The Democratic electorate is more racially diverse and disproportionately female than the electorate will be in November. In other words, the coalitions that a candidate puts together to win a primary don’t always translate in a general election.

Let’s take a look at Trump’s coalition in the primaries. Exit poll data analysed by Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein found Trump’s strongest constituency was with voters who did not have a college degree - he won those voters with 47 per cent. He also ran better with men than women - taking about 44 per cent of the male vote and 36 per cent of the female vote, according to an April exit poll analysis by the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies.

So, let’s take Trump’s success at the primary level and play it out at the general election level. Specifically, how does Trump’s strength among white men without a college degree look in a general election.

While we don’t have the breakdown by gender of the non-college voters in the GOP primary, Brownstein estimates that white males without a college education made up 22-25 per cent of the GOP electorate. That is 5 to 8 points higher than their representation in the overall electorate in 2012, where white men without a college degree made up just 17 per cent of the voting population.

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We also know that primary battles have a dampening effect on party unity. But, it is usually a short lived phenomenon. Whether it was Clinton voters lining up behind Obama in 2008, or, as we see now with GOP voters getting behind Trump very quickly post primary.

An NBC/Wall Street journal poll found that the per cent of Republicans who said they’d support Trump went from 72 per cent in early April, when the battle for the nomination was still hot and heavy, to 85 per cent in mid-May when it was over. Clinton’s ongoing battle with Sanders has prevented her from consolidating hers in the same way. But, it is likely that once the primary is over, Democrats will “come home” and support their nominee.

If both candidates are able to get their partisans on board - 90 per cent or so - this will be a close contest. If Trump’s support among Republicans suddenly plunges or Clinton ultimately fails to get Sanders supporters on board, the race becomes more unpredictable. Unless or until that happens, we can assume that both sides are going to keep their “teams” in line.

2. Trends are tough to upend

The bigger test for the Trump campaign is to prove that the 2013 RNC autopsy - the document that said Republicans needed to broaden their base to include more women, non-whites and younger people - was wrong. They seem determined to win not by broadening the base, but by doubling down on it - specifically by appealing to white voters, especially white, downscale men in Rust Belt states.

Can this work?

First, let’s take a look at the national numbers. In 1980, 65 per cent of the electorate were whites without a college degree. By 2012, whites without a college degree made up just 36 per cent of the vote. In fact, notes Brownstein, in 2012, white women with a college degree made up a larger share of the electorate than white men without a degree (19 per cent to 17 per cent).

The most recent polling shows Trump running up the score among white men without a degree, but losing white women with a degree by large margins too. More important, writes Brownstein in his latest opus on all things demographics, “non-white and college educated women could cast 49 to 50 per cent of the ballots this year.”

Now, let’s look at how this plays out at the state level. For Trump to win the Electoral College, without carrying the more diverse states like Florida, Virginia, Colorado, or Nevada, he’d need to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin AND Michigan. All but Ohio have been carried by Democrats in every election since 1992. But these states have a population that’s whiter than the national average. They also have a large per centage of white voters who don’t hold a college degree. So, how does Trump flip them in 2016?

The Democratic targeting and polling group Lincoln Park Strategies crunched the numbers and found that in order for Trump to win a state like Pennsylvania, he’d need to improve on Romney’s performance with white men by 6 points - from 60 to 67 per cent, and then run six points better among white women - from 54 to 60 per cent.

In Michigan, the state with the lowest per cent of white votes of the four at 75 per cent, Trump would need to improve his standing with white women by 10 points - from 53-63 per cent. Given his standing with female voters in those states, hitting those high marks is going to be a stretch.

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The other possibility is that Trump expands the electorate, by identifying and turning out voters who haven’t traditionally participated. Nationally, non-college white voters turn out at a lower rate than college white voters - 57 per cent for non-college whites voted in 2012 compared to 77 per cent of college whites. If Trump and the RNC can identify and mobilise these voters, they can change the composition of the electorate and overcome the Democratic advantage. That, of course, requires money and infrastructure and organisation - something the we haven’t seen from the Trump campaign. The most recent stories, in fact, suggest a campaign in turmoil with The RNC boasts of a new and improved data and targeting operation. But, it remains to be seen if they’ll have the money to implement it.

Before dismissing the ability to expand the white electorate out of hand, it’s important to remember that the white vote has declined every year since 1980 with one very important exception - 1992 when it jumped up 2 points from 1988. That year, of course, the populist messenger Ross Perot was on the ballot. However, what’s different this time is that the Democratic party is actively working to expand their base too.

Ultimately, the Rust Belt Trump strategy reminds me of one of those Hollywood movies where the protagonist is desperately trying to outrun an oncoming storm. In this case, the storm is demographic realities and Trump’s own high negatives. In the movie, the storm eventually wins. Maybe Trump can outrun and outsmart this storm, but it requires the kind of meticulous campaigning and disciplined approach that he and his team have eschewed up to this point.

Finally, I’m asked a lot these days by friends and family if I am "having fun" this election season. “This sure is an exciting election, isn’t it?” they ask. “You must be in hog heaven.” Actually, and sadly, I am not enjoying this. This year, the electorate will be divided along race, education/class and gender like never before. I’m preparing myself for a campaign that is going to be nasty and ugly and will leave the country more polarised than it is today. There’s nothing to be happy about there.

This article was republished with the kind permission of The Cook Political Report. Follow on Twitter: @CookPolitical

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