With Tuesday’s victory in the Indiana Republican Presidential Primary, Donald Trump appears to be the GOP nominee.
What seemed like a marketing exercise to promote the Trump brand has turned into a successful campaign. While remarks from offensive comments on Mexican immigrants, to smearing Senator John McCain’s war record, seemed campaign ending nothing in fact bothered his core voters. Not since Eisenhower, who of course had a compelling war hero story, has a U.S. political party nominated a candidate with no government experience.
Trump has never really thought about broad public policy issues, has never cast a single vote in a legislative body, and has no group of trusted advisers with political or policy experience. To say the least this is unchartered political territory.
In Kentucky it poses real questions on the federal and state levels. At the federal level the challenge is focused on our senior Senator, Mitch McConnell, as he attempts to maintain the Republican majority in the Senate, and his role as the leader. Also Kentucky has a key U.S. Senate race where Democrats have recruited a strong challenger to Senator Rand Paul in Lexington Mayor Jim Gray.
If Trump’s candidacy curbs Republican enthusiasm it could impact the Senate race. Similarly, on the state level, diminished Republican turnout could impact the election for control of the Kentucky House, where Democrats continue to hold on to a narrow majority.
While the initial view of pundits is that Hillary Clinton does appear to be in a strong position based on the Electoral College map, there is a roadmap that could lead to a Trump victory. While the Republicans have done well in local races, in fact they have lost the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential races. (In 2000 Gore got more votes, but Bush won the Electoral College.)
Looking at the Electoral College map, to win a candidate needs to get 270 votes; in 2012 Obama defeated Romney 332 to 206. What would be Trump’s road to victory?
First Trump would need to win every state that Romney won. These states are in the South, where he won all but Virginia, and the Plains states. These states have become solidly Republican at all levels of government and it seems possible for Trump to repeat Romney’s success in these states. But the question is how does he get the 64 additional electoral votes to win?
Looking at his primary campaign strategy of focusing on rebuilding the American heartland and “Making America Great Again,” the core “rust belt” industrial states would be the core of a Republican victory. In the modern era of American politics no Republican has won the Presidency without winning Ohio.
George W. Bush did so each time, but Romney failed in a close race where Obama only got 50 percent of the vote. Clearly Ohio and its neighbors Michigan and Pennsylvania need to be won by Trump. Trump had impressive victories in these three states during the primaries, and they have been hard hit by the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs. Many organized labor voters, who traditionally vote Democratic, may find Trump’s anti-trade, anti-immigrant message appealing.
Many of these voters believe that they are losing their jobs to both trade agreements and immigrants, so Trump’s points can resonate. These three states have 54 Electoral votes, so even by winning all three he would still be ten votes short of a victory in the Electoral College.
Where could Trump pick up the 10 votes? The first option would be Virginia, that Obama won but the margin was very thin, with the President getting only getting 51 percent of the vote. Virginia has 13 Electoral votes, therefore, adding it to the rust belt states would lead to a Trump victory. Minnesota is another rust belt state that Obama carried, but his margin was over 53 percent, and it never had the manufacturing base of the other three states. But Minnesota does have ten electoral votes, so it too could put Trump over the top.
While this is a scenario that shows a Trump road to victory, it is not an easy road. Pennsylvania last year defeated a Republican candidate for governor and now has a Democratic governor. Michigan has been rocked by the water crisis in Flint, and this happen under their Republican Governor. Virginia, while having served as the capital of the old Confederacy, has moved into the Democratic column largely due to the growth of suburbs outside of Washington D.C. In fact last year it replaced a Republican governor with a Democrat.
Bottom line is that the general election is just beginning, and while the Democrats under Clinton look poised to keep the White House, unpredictability has been the hallmark of the 2016 election.
To quote Yogi Berra, “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Tom Block is a public policy consultant who had a 21-year career with JP Morgan Chase where he served as head of government relations in New York City and created a Washington research product. He also created the bank’s EU Government Relations program and developed a new position as U.S. Government Policy Strategist focusing on how U.S. government policy impacts capital markets. He has an extensive government and banking background, has worked on political campaigns and as a speech writer. He is a family trustee of Bernheim Arboretum in Louisville and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from American University. He and his wife make their home in Kentucky. He is a regular contributor to NKyTribune and KyForward. Contact him at tomblockct@aol.com.