For much of the campaign, Donald Trump has tried to convince us that the polls are underestimating his support. Supposedly, there’s an army of hidden and potential Trump supporters waiting in the wings–and if they rally to him, he wins. Well, The New York Times has found yet more evidence that this potential horde of Trump voters only exists in the Donald’s mind.
Trump seems to be pinning his hopes in part in winning over “missing white voters.” Supposedly, a lot of white, conservative-leaning populists stayed home in 2012–and if they rally to Trump’s standard, it will put him in the White House. However, the team at The Upshot thinks Trump is merely tilting at windmills. The Upshot reviewed voter registration data from across the country, as well as polling results in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The demographics in all three states suggest that they are very likely places for “missing white voters” to be hiding.
What they discovered suggests that those missing white voters wouldn’t be nearly enough to get Trump over the finish line. Polling data suggests that missing white voters in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania indeed break for Trump–but only by 43 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton, less than his 52-32 lead among white voters who did turn out in 2012. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to overcome the tsunami of missing nonwhite voters breaking for Hillary; in these states, she leads that group by a staggering 61-20 margin. It’s enough to boost her to a 43-38 lead among all missing voters.
Upshot then looked at newly registered voters in all three states. Trump only leads new white voters 40-34. That’s nowhere near enough to overcome Hillary’s massive advantage among new nonwhite voters, which stakes her out to a 47-31 lead among new voters in these very crucial states.
Based on this data, Trump’s campaign strategy is built on quicksand. He’s focused almost entirely on running it up among conservative white voters. For instance, during his swing through Florida on Wednesday, he visited crimson-red Pensacola. I wondered–what in the world is Trump doing in the reddest major city in Florida this close to Election Day? Under normal conditions, if a Republican presidential candidate has to come to the Panhandle at this stage, something is wrong.
Well, now I have my answer. Trump hopes to rally a demographic that, by all accounts, isn’t even there.
(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons-BY license)
