Donald Trump Campaign Strategy Of Targeting ‘Missing’ White Voters Has Flaws, Expert Analysis Finds
Donald Trump’s campaign strategy of going after white voters who feel they have been disaffected by both political parties is flawed, an in-depth study by FiveThirtyEight has found.
The analysis, done by David Wasserman, noted that Trump’s campaign appears to be going after white voters, much like how independent candidate Ross Perot did in 1992. That year saw an uptick in white, typically non-college educated voters; 70 percent voted that year.
But in 2012, FiveThirtyEight noted, just 64 percent did so. Why the decline?
“It’s likely that neither the professorial President Obama nor the patrician Mitt Romney clicked with many whites who had found a home with Perot or Bill Clinton two decades prior,” Wasserman said, “and millions of these disaffected voters simply stayed home.”
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Hence, Trump’s campaign to reach these disaffected white voters, which may explain his recent antics, including his public criticism of New Mexico governor Susana Martinez at an Albuquerque rally last week (see story above), and his calling a judge who will be hearing a case on Trump University a “Mexican” (while the judge has Hispanic parents, he was born in Indiana — please see the Inquisitr’s earlier story).
Can Trump ride “missing” white voters to the White House? A new study says it’s a long shot – https://t.co/kCiCqxvoKm – @washtimes
— Kelly Sadler (@KellyRiddell) June 2, 2016
But FiveThirtyEight’s analysis reveals both good news and bad news for Trump’s strategy.
“If non-Hispanic whites had turned out at the same rate in 2012 that they did in 1992, there would have been 8.8 million additional white voters — far more than Obama’s 5 million-vote margin of victory.”
However, the good news ends there for Trump, as those 8.8 million white voters aren’t necessarily living in the states that Trump hopes to win, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio.
“These ‘missing’ white voters disproportionately live in states that won’t matter in a close presidential race,” Wasserman wrote.
In fact, Pennsylvania saw “virtually no white drop-off,” and the white vote has actually increased in recent years in Florida and New Hampshire, two other swing states that backed Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.
Additionally, there were only three states “where the estimated number of ‘missing’ white voters exceeded Obama’s margin of victory in 2012: Florida, Nevada and Ohio.”
According to Wasserman’s projections, Trump would need to win just 58 percent of “missing” white voters to wipe out Obama’s 2012 totals. But in other states, the slope is steeper: In Ohio, he would need 75 percent of those votes, and 89 percent in Utah.
Another problem for Trump is that in pursuing this strategy, he seems to be turning off college-educated white voters. Wasserman noted that in 2012, Mitt Romney won among this voting bloc by a 56-42 percent margin. But in one recent poll, Trump only leads Clinton by a 46-45 percent margin.
It gets worse for Trump.
“In Republican-leaning counties with high white socioeconomic status, Romney beat Obama 56 percent to 38 percent but Trump leads Clinton by just 47 percent to 44 percent,” Wasserman stated.
The bottom line here is that while the Perot voters could help Trump, it won’t necessarily be in the states that he needs to win. Coupled with a boost from anti-Trump Hispanic voters, Trump would need “truly historic levels of support and turnout among working-class whites” to win with this strategy, according to Wasserman.
But as the Washington Times noted, “Mr. Trump’s strength has been underestimated since he entered the race in June, defying all odds (and pundit predictions) that he would never become the Republican presidential nominee.”
What do you think? Can Donald Trump get elected by doubling down on “missing” white voters? Should he try to broaden his support by appealing to other groups as well?
[Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images]
