Donald Trump’s runaway support among white male voters has been well documented, but unfortunately for his campaign, winning a national election requires attracting voters from a broad swath of demographic groups.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Republican strategist Nicole Wallace asked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AZ) and Sen. Tom Barrasso (R-WY) how they could address the party’s flagging numbers among women and minorities.
“We as a party are losing women by 23 points at the top of our ticket,” Wallace said. “Do you even want to win with just white men voting Republican? I’m embarrassed.”
“George W. Bush won with 40 percent of the Hispanic vote,” she went on. “He narrowed the gender gap to a historic level that we haven’t matched since 2004. Are you proud our path to victory is just to turn out more white guys?”
The two senators turned to each other and urged the other to speak first. Host Mika Brzezinski joked that the answer to Wallace’s question would be given by “two white guys.”
“Well bring in Joni Ernst, bring in Kelly Ayotte, bring in others, there are many people around the country—” Barasso replied, naming female Republican senators.
“So Donald Trump himself can’t appeal to women,” Wallace said.
“Absolutely,” Barasso pushed back. “The change versus more of the same is really—”
“The platform is the most conservative ever,” Wallace replied, referring to the official GOP platform released Monday. The New York Times editorial board called the document, which makes no exceptions for rape or women’s health in cases of abortion, requires the Bible to be taught in public schools, calls for appointing “family values” judges, and rejects gun control measures, “the most extreme” “in memory.”
“Do you think women are going to be attracted to this year’s platform?” she asked.
“It’s a platform focused on jobs,” Barasso said. “Women are very concerned about economy. And it’s about security, national security, energy security, economic security, key issues for all Americans.”
Barrasso chaired the platform committee at this year’s convention. The interview ended before Cotton, who spoke Monday during the “Make America Safe Again” programming, could share his thoughts.
Incidentally, the GOP doesn’t have an apparatus worth speaking of, and Trump is pretty much broke. They aren’t getting any money from their big donors like the Koch Brothers, Coca Cola, etc. Oh, and the PAC ads I’ve seen supporting Kelly Ayotte have disappeared…this doesn’t look very good for the GOP, and that’s before one factors in the enormous problems Trump has with minority voters. The down ballot races may be in trouble…oh and the RNC may have a problem with veterans now too thanks to them not being willing to fund the VA properly.
Please do not tell women what they are ‘interested’ in. You have been doing that for years. There is nothing in this platform or with this candidate that people find ‘interesting’. ''Security, national security, energy security, economic security, key issues for all Americans" is being addressed by Hillary WITHOUT the baggage of your sexist crap.
Whites are 80+% of the population. If 70% of them vote Republican Trump wins in a landslide. I am not actually saying that this would happen, but, given the fact that the MSM will be working in OverDrive to make Trump EXACTLY like Clinton in terms of the Doctrine of False Equivalency (Mann and Ornstein have written about this), they WILL do everything humanly possible to make this happen.
If I were Hillary and her team I would campaign like my life depended on it** and plan as though every single person in the U.S. is a Trump potential voter waiting to be duped by the greatest liar and con-man in American History.
** Because–according to Trump’s “Art of the Deal” ghostwriter–all of CIVILIZATION depends on Hill winning this one
will the party’s postmortem after this year’s election reach the same conclusion as the previous postmortem?
that the platform and the candidate weren’t conservative enough ?
The profile of Trump projected from behind a screen and then Trump emerging from fog to the music of Queen. Somewhere over a broken rainbow lives the Wizard of Odd. An incredibly dangerous Wizard behind the poisonous smoke and mirrors of Odd.