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Trump Campaign Lags Behind Clinton in Organizing to Win Ohio
Sunday, May 22, 2016 10:44 PM
By: Brian Freeman
Despite Donald Trump overtaking Hillary Clinton in the average of national polls for the first time in the presidential race, the presumptive Republican candidate has much work to do to reach the White House.
Trump is behind Clinton in organizing a campaign staff in key battleground states that could determine the fate of the elections. The Wall Street Journal reports.
Nowhere is this more true than in Ohio, a state that every winner in the presidential elections has captured since 1964.
At first glance Ohio, as a manufacturing hotbed, has many of the elements that could make Trump victorious due to his stances on restricting immigration and foreign trade. Helping out Trump is that Hispanics, who generally reject his position on immigration, are in relatively small numbers in the state.
But CBS News reports that Trump trails Clinton 44 percent to 39 percent in the state, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who won the state in the primaries, has so far been unwilling to back the real estate mogul in the general elections even after suspending his own campaign for the Republican nomination. Many of the governor's followers are similarly lukewarm toward Trump.
Although Trump prevailed in the primaries to become the presumptive nominee, he achieved that feat with a skeletal staff and tight budget. Most experts agree a victory in the general election would be much more difficult under those circumstances.
Yet, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Trump has yet to make contact with the Republican Party and efforts to recruit Kasich's experienced organizers have so far been unsuccessful.
Even those in the state who have supported Trump report that their efforts to help out the general election campaign have so far gone unanswered, and many worry that this slow start could harm efforts to carry the state in November.
This all stands in contrast to Clinton, who is much farther along in organizing for the general election with a campaign office about to open and help of the Democratic machinery, despite the continued presence of Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
The super PAC supporting Clinton has already begun broadcasting ads, while the PAC backing Trump is still in the process of trying to raise funds.
Trump's political director Rich Wiley admits that the real estate mogul's campaign has gotten off to a slow start in the Buckeye state, but insists it has "made tremendous strides" and that increasing numbers of people are wanting to get on board in the effort to defeat Clinton.
