The assiduous observers at the National Journal have been keeping careful track of every single presidential candidate’s campaign travel schedule all year, logging exactly how many days each one has spent in all of the key primary states. There are a lot of interesting details in the data, such as the fact that the most frequent campaigners in Iowa (Bobby Jindal, 70 days) and New Hampshire (Lindsey Graham, 67 days) have both dropped out of the race. So much for retail politics—at least for those two chumps.
But one other tidbit that jumps out in the chart above is just how little time Donald Trump has spent on the campaign trail compared to every other active candidate, Democratic and Republican. In fact, only Rick Perry logged fewer days on the road, and he dropped out back in September. Now, The Donald didn’t launch his campaign until mid-June, while some of these jamokes have been running all year. But Chris Christie and John Kasich didn’t formally kick off their own bids until after Trump’s, yet they’ve managed to rack up far more Hilton HHonors points than the loudmouth from New York City.
Yet despite Trump’s limited stumping, he finishes the year in a dominant position in national polling and a wide lead in New Hampshire (though Ted Cruz did just surge past him in Iowa). Sort of funny, though, how the guy who constantly derides all of his opponents for being “low energy” maintains the most limited travel schedule of the entire field—and that’s despite owning his own private jet. Still, Trump could give a press conference from his bathroom and get massive media attention.
The question, though, is whether he can turn that attention into votes. We’ll finally have that answer in just over a month.