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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/how-donald-trump-defeats-hillary-clinton-217868
If Donald Trump becomes the next president of the United States, there will be plenty of surprises along the way. One of the biggest will be the help he gets from black voters.
According to Republican pollsters and Trumps allies, the GOP poll-leader who has been dogged by accusations of racism, most recently for tweeting out a chart that exaggerated the share of murders committed by blacks is poised to out-perform with this demographic group in a general-election matchup with Hillary Clinton.
If he were the Republican nominee he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980, said Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz, referring to the year Reagan won 14 percent of that bloc of voters. They listen to him. They find him fascinating, and in all the groups I have done, I have found Obama voters, they couldve voted for Obama twice, but if theyre African-American they would consider Trump.
Another longtime Republican pollster and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns has tested Trumps appeal to blacks and Hispanics and come to the same conclusion. He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave, explained the pollster, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid damaging relationships within the party. Hes not a white-bread socialite kind of guy.
Theres more. The rest of Trumps path to general-election victory, as laid out to POLITICO by pollsters, his campaign and his former advisers, looks like this: After winning the nomination on the first ballot, Trump unifies the party he has fractured behind him and reinvents himself as a pragmatic businessman and family man at the Republican National Convention. News of small-scale terror plots on American soil, foiled or successful, keep voters in a state of anxiety. Trump minimizes his losses with Hispanics by running Spanish-language ads highlighting his support for a strong military and take-charge entrepreneurial attitude, especially in the Miami and Orlando media markets. He draws the starkest possible outsider-insider contrast with Hillary Clinton and successfully tars her with her husbands sexual history.
If he does all that, holds Mitt Romneys states, and drives extraordinary levels of working-class white voter turnout in the suburbs and exurbs of Ohio and Virginia, as well as in the Florida panhandle and Jacksonville, he can flip those three Obama states and rack up 266 electoral votes. Winning any one of Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico would put him over the top and make Donald John Trump the 45th president of the United States.
Shrinking Democrats edge with black voters is just one of the counterintuitive wrinkles to the scenario in which Trump stuns the world and wins the White House. His path also includes playing the gender card against Clinton, a Karl Rovian gambit to turn his opponents strength her feminist appeal into a weakness.
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While many Republicans say Trumps nomination would hand the presidency to Clinton, others see the former secretary of state as a deeply flawed candidate who could squander Democrats structural advantages in the race, including in a matchup with Trump.
Im not willing to say hes the most electable candidate for president because of the hostility he has generated from women and Latinos, said Luntz. But he added, Im unwilling to write Trump off any more. Its foolish.
Already, Trump has been laying groundwork in the African-American community that could pay dividends in a general election. With the help of his political and business adviser Michael Cohen, Trump has spent years cultivating black faith leaders. Last year, he held meetings with black pastors in Georgia and at Trump Tower in New York. Trumps team has also made a pair of black female video bloggers, Lynette Diamond Hardaway and Rochelle Silk Richardson, prominent surrogates online and on the trail.
Still, he has alienated Hispanics and women and his favorability rating with all voters is further underwater than Clintons. Indeed, a race between Clinton and Trump could open the window for a third candidate to spoil Trumps chance.
Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who ran for president as the Libertarian Partys nominee in 2012 and is again seeking the partys nomination, told POLITICO he views a Trump nomination as an opportunity to poach Republican voters. Its ripe pickings, said Johnson, citing Trumps positions on trade, his support for eminent domain and his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also reportedly polled on a three-way matchup with Trump and Clinton, and it is unclear how the entrance of a second billionaire and third New Yorker would reconfigure the race.
While few if any Republicans view Trump as the partys most electable nominee, some say he would bring unique assets to a general election.
You can say whatever you want about Donald but its going to be really tough to nail Donald on abortion, said the veteran Republican pollster who has studied Trumps appeal. Its going to be really tough to nail Donald on gay marriage. Its going to be really tough to nail Donald on Planned Parenthood. Its just not who he is, while Cruz has fought and died on every one of those hills.
Though Trump has been dogged by allegation of sexism, and he apparently insinuated that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she asked him tough questions during the first Republican debate, his former political aide Sam Nunberg, said the businessman can still attract many female voters.
Though Nunberg left Trumps campaign in August, in a recent poll conducted for another client, Nunberg asked women in Connecticut who opposed marijuana legalization who they respected more: a politician who is also charitable and a world-renowned businessman, father and grandfather or an Elderly woman who not only openly allows her husband to have affairs but tries to silence the women. The figure with the favorable abstract framing of Trump beat the figure with the negative abstract framing of Clinton by more than 20 points, according to Nunberg.
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Hes a masculine figure and that will attract women to him, said Nunberg. Its their dirty little secret. They like Donald Trump.
Campaign manager Corey Lewandwoski said Trumps operation remains focused on winning the nomination, but suggested that the businessman would outperform recent Republican nominees in rust belt states ravaged by free trade, naming Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
In a follow-up conversation, Lewandowski took a more expansive view of Trumps general election prospects, suggesting the businessman could expand the electoral map to include California, Illinois and New York. Several Republican strategists and pollsters laughed off the suggestion. But 2015s lesson for 2016 may be this: Never say never.
