I’ve been writing for months now that it’s simply not true that Donald Trump is bringing millions of new people or really any new people into the GOP. The people who are voting for Trump aren’t new to voting and they’re not even new to the GOP. What they are new to is voting in the primaries as opposed to just reliably voting for whoever the GOP puts up in November.
This claim has been central tenet of the Trump campaign. But as I’ve said, it’s simply not true: something which has been clear from numerous individual sources of data. I looked at a few states last month. There weren’t many new voters. And notably, Trump’s margin among the new voters was only marginally better than his margin over all. But now Politico, with some help from key data-nerds, has put all information together. And it confirms what I’ve said: Trump isn’t bringing in new people. He’s getting existing general election voters more involved in the primaries.
