The Republican base still has not united behind Donald Trump.
This explains why he’s polling at or below 40 percent in the majority of surveys taken, both nationally and in battleground states, over the past three weeks. That’s a sharp drop-off from late July, when, immediately following a week of solidarity-themed speeches at the GOP convention, Trump registered in the mid-forties in a chorus of surveys and was neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton.
Forget about wooing independents or pilfering Democrats. If Trump is to get back on track and regain a competitive stance against Clinton, he must first solidify his standing among rank-and-file Republican voters, as party chairman Reince Priebus acknowledged on “Face the Nation” yesterday. “That is the easiest piece for us to take care of,” he said. “Once the Republican base gets back up to where it was after the convention, those polls in Ohio and North Carolina and New Hampshire are going to be right back where we need them to be.”
But that’s easier said than done. The reason Republicans remain divided, even at this late stage, is simple: Trump has spent the past 14 months appealing to one wing of the party at the expense of the other.
To review: Republican voters, broadly speaking, can be divided into two camps. The first is comprised of those who live in middle- and upper-class suburbs, earned college degrees, and have white-collar careers. The second is home to those who live in rural settings or working-class suburbs, are less educated, and hold blue-collar jobs. (Ron Brownstein dubbed these groups “Managers” and “Populists.”) The latter was hugely supportive of Trump during the GOP primary, in large part due to his policies and rhetoric on immigration, and continues to back him enthusiastically. The former was divided between several candidates, Trump included, and has not fully embraced him as the party’s standard-bearer, in large part due to his policies and rhetoric on immigration.
Trump is finally making a sincere effort, particularly over the past two weeks, to engage the managers inside the party. But his loyalty to the populists, rooted in the reality that he shares their core political convictions, has hindered that outreach. It’s apparent that Trump finally understands — perhaps after digesting weeks of polling that allows for no alternate conclusion — that he must expand his appeal to stand a chance of winning in November. But it’s equally apparent that Trump has no appetite for abandoning the tactics that brought him this far.
The result is a schizophrenic strategy for consolidating the Republican base, one that vacillates between different sound bites for different voters on different days. Instead of a standard campaign playbook that emphasizes consistency, Trump is now adopting a scattershot approach that has something for everyone. Consider the events of last week:
– On Monday, Trump gave a major national-security speech in Ohio, likening the fight against radical Islam to the Cold War and calling for aggressive new measures to combat terrorism. Trump did not mention his pledge to prevent all Muslims from entering the U.S. — which proved decidedly unpopular with the GOP’s managerial wing — but still implied blanket opposition to accepting any Syrian refugees, and proposed “extreme vetting” for anyone coming from a country afflicted with terrorism. He also called for an “ideological test” to ensure that immigrants share American values.
– On Tuesday, Trump delivered a speech in Wisconsin ostensibly aimed at black voters, whom he said Democrats had “failed and betrayed” with their policies. Trump gave the speech not in Milwaukee, which is 40 percent black, but in suburban Washington County, which, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes, “has a black population of 1.2%” This was no accident: College-educated Republicans have been most adamant about their party projecting compassion and inclusiveness toward minority communities — and Trump has struggled to win their support as a result. Trump wasn’t speaking to urban, black Democrats on Tuesday; he was speaking to suburban, white Republicans who think its important that the party speak to urban, black Democrats.
– On Wednesday, Trump made two major staff changes that sent dueling signals about the direction of his campaign. Trump announced that Stephen Bannon — the establishment-bashing chairman of Breitbart Media, an ultra-conservative website that’s become home to the xenophobic and race-baiting “alt-right” — would become his campaign’s new CEO. At the same time, Trump announced he was elevating pollster Kellyanne Conway — a longtime Republican operative who has focused on appealing to women, and who once supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants — to become his new campaign manager.
– On Thursday, Trump gave a speech in Charlotte that was widely praised as his finest of the campaign, during which he expressed vague “regret” for offenses he may have caused (while stopping short of offering specifics or any sort of apology.). Trump continued his outreach to black voters, asking them, after decades of failed Democratic leadership in America’s cities, “What do you have to lose?” He also struck notes of unity and optimism, pledging to protect equality for women, gays, Hispanics and other minority groups. Trump talked of a “New American Future” and, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York observed, used the word “together” seven times. It was the closest Trump has sounded to a centrist in 2016.
– On Friday, Trump released his first TV ad of the general-election campaign, a 30-second spot featuring dark and ominous images of immigrants streaming across open borders and warning that Syrian refugees would “flood in” under President Hillary Clinton. … An hour after the ad’s release, Trump confirmed the resignation of campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who months earlier had replaced the bomb-throwing former manager Corey Lewandowski atop Trump’s electoral enterprise in what allies described as a pivot for Trump away from controversies and toward being more presidential.
– On Saturday, Trump broadened his message to the black community, telling a rally in Virginia, “The GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln. And I want our party to be the home of the African-American voter once again.” … He also met with his Hispanic advisory council at Trump Tower in New York City, and reports quickly surfaced in BuzzFeed and Univision that Trump was softening his stance on immigration — and even considering mass legalization for those living in the U.S. illegally. Those reports suggested that Trump was preparing to announce a significant shift in his immigration policy this coming Thursday in Colorado.
– On Sunday, Bannon’s website Breitbart.com pushed back forcefully against those news accounts: “Trump did not say or suggest that he was open to granting any legal status–amnesty–to any illegal aliens in the United States at his campaign’s National Hispanic Advisory Council meeting as reported in BuzzFeed and Univision.” … On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Conway was quizzed on these conflicting reports, and asked repeatedly whether Trump still supported the “deportation force” he promised during the GOP primary. After deflecting twice, she finally responded, “To be determined.”