Where is the Trump Movement?

[Formerly Once-Ler]

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/where-is-the-trump-movement/

The minute the ball drops on Thursday night, and 2015 fades into 2016, the presidential election season will begin in earnest. When polls fail to show a decline in support for the GOP’s boorish frontrunner, those ubiquitous dismissals of the early primary surveys from nervous Republicans will give way to outright panic. To peruse the national surveys would lead the neutral observer to concede that the race is Donald Trump’s to lose. The key early state primaries tell a slightly different story, one of a more complicated and protracted election season, but still one that favors Trump in the end. Still, there are a few lonely voices advocating caution when projecting a Trump surge. Until recently, these political professionals have relied on accumulated wisdom when offering this admonition, but the data is beginning to back up their assertions.

Who is the “Trump voter?” Well, we don’t exactly know, because there is no such thing. Having never run for political office before, Donald Trump has never earned a single vote. From surveys, we do however know a little bit about the demography of the Donald Trump supporter: He is more likely to be male, somewhat younger than the average GOP voter, less educated and unlikely to have earned a college degree, and less inclined to describe himself as an evangelical or “very” conservative. He is, however, angry. His simmering frustrations with elites in government, the evolution of American culture, and his own personal circumstances is channeled into Trump’s campaign. This, some suggest, could create the conditions in which a mirror image Obama effect materializes in the early states. Whereas Obama’s 2008 campaign of “hope” generated new voters who did not show up on pollsters’ radar until late in the process, Trump’s campaign of stoking festering resentments might have the same effect on the electorate.

If that is to be the case, we should be able to measure this effect in the form of new voter registration. So far, however, there isn’t much evidence to support that thesis in the earliest of states: Iowa and New Hampshire.

In a piece Wednesday chronicling some concerns from a former Trump operative that the billionaire candidate is likely to suffer in the polls after he endures what looks like a likely loss to Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa, The Daily Beast’s Tim Mak noted that Hawkeye State voter registration is essentially static from 2012. By this point in the last presidential election cycle, 2,112,655 Iowans had registered to vote. Today, 2,087,884 Iowans are registered voters with the secretary of state’s office. In 2012, 614,913 Iowans were registered Republicans. Today, 611,433 Hawkeye State residents are registered to vote with the GOP.

That decline over four years masks a modest surge in registration over the last four weeks. Since early November, 1,431 new voters joined the GOP rolls in Iowa compared with just 146 new Democratic voters. This might indicate a modest uptick in interest for Team Trump (among many other possibilities), but it certainly reflects the vibrancy of the Republican primary race when compared with the sleepy Democratic coronation procession. As the pollster Adrian Gray observed, though, Democrats added 4,082 new voters in the two months that preceded the 2008 caucuses. “Doesn’t disprove Obama-esque surge for Trump, but doesn’t validate one either,” he averred.

What about the Granite State? New Hampshire is Donald Trump’s firewall. The state holds an open primary, meaning that registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters can cast their ballots simultaneously. Trump’s strength among more moderate and independent Republican-leaning voters suggests he may do well here, and the Granite State primary’s early position on the calendar should mean that the Trump phenomenon will still be peaking when the state votes.

Still, the story in New Hampshire isn’t much different from Iowa. Over the course of 2015, the number of registered Republicans in New Hampshire declined by 950 voters. But while Democratic and Republican registrations sank, the number of undeclared voters surged by 2,841 voters from September 30 to today. That might indicate heightened interest in Donald Trump’s campaign, but caution is still due. The number of registered voters declined overall by 68,025 voters from November of 2012 to today, which suggests that general voter interest in this primary election remains unchanged since Donald Trump entered the race. For reference, in the relatively competitive 2012 primary, just 31.1 percent of the eligible electorate turned out to the polls.

This dynamic might change when the Trump campaign gets serious about launching a television advertising campaign in the early states, which it has finally promised is forthcoming. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed on Tuesday that Trump plans a $2 million per week advertising blitz in the early states ahead of the first votes. That would be a substantial advertising purchase, but in states like New Hampshire where television reservations have been ongoing for months, Haberman noted that such a purchase is “virtually impossible.”  Furthermore, “Mr. Trump has yet to reserve the television time, according to two independent media buyers.” To put Trump’s anticipated purchase in perspective, Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign and a pro-Rubio super PAC have already bought $6 million in commercial time in the Boston media market for the period leading up to the primary. Jeb Bush’s campaign and allies intend to air $14 million in ads, including two Super Bowl spots, on top of the $35 million in national advertising they’ve already purchased.

If Trump is counting on a late burst of campaign spending to produce more enthusiasm in his candidacy than the saturation-level earned media coverage he has already generated, that seems a risky bet. There is, however, plenty of time between now and when the first votes are cast, and the marginal voters who determine elections are only now beginning to tune into the race. There may yet be a surge in registration as unenthusiastic voters register with the intention of putting Trump over the top. The Trump supporter is, however, the definition of an unlikely voter. “People who are better educated, have higher incomes, and are older vote more often than do younger, less-educated, and poorer people,” wrote the political scientist Stephen Wayne in The Road to the White House 2016. “In general, the lower the turnout, the greater the demographic differences between voters and non-voters.” If the Trump surge is coming, it’s going to surprise many observers. For the time being, the Trump phenomenon remains limited to media-sponsored polls.

[EC]

"Where is the Trump Movement?"

Come on, author, the guy's a boor, not an ANIMAL! He flushes. Where do you think his movement is?

*reads actual article*

Oh.

I will say one good thing for Trump. He's been a boon for authors of opinion pieces, who normally get paid by the meter. Some of them have written enough now to be able to afford a sandwich!