It’s time to put a stake in the ground. Donald Trump will NOT win the 2016 election.
I’m sure about this because the fundamentals of a winning election are not there. I could point at the polls that show Hillary Clinton with the lead in most of the toss-up states. She has many paths to 270. Trump has only one or two narrow options. I could point to money advantage the Clinton team has over the Trump campaign but the primary proved that that alone is not a sure thing to secure a victory. I could point to the fact the Donald Trump only speaks to his base and does not do/say anything to grow his voting block. In fact, one could argue he does/says things that actually narrows his base.
But none of these things assure me of a Clinton victory more than the fact that Donald Trump has no ground game. He has no Get Out The Vote strategy and few full time staff whose sole job would be identifying voters and getting them to the polls during their respective voting periods.
Listen, you can get people to a rally who shout and holler and carry signs. But getting them to actually go to the polls to vote is a whole ‘nother job. People always have excuses why they won’t vote – work, school, weather, don’t feel like it, not sure anymore…
The math alone shows the mountain that Trump has to climb. He got 14 million votes during the primary but he needs more than 60 million votes to win the general. Where does that vote come from? Do you think there are 46 million Republicans voters who didn’t vote in the primaries that will now vote in the general? NOPE!
Do you think that of the 95% of Americans who don’t follow politics to the same level as you who is reading this blog will, on their own, prioritize getting out to their poll to vote when they are suppose to be there? NOPE!
Listen, Donald Trump is an entertainer. From the ride down the escalator to his shaming of his GOP rivals to his stint as Republican presidential nominee, he is a show. I’m sure a large percentage of his Twitter followers and Facebook likes are from people, like me, who just want to hear what he says next.
For all these reasons, for Donald Trump to win, he needs a ground game that finds his voters, tracks them and gets them to vote. I don’t see any signs of this. If the Trump team thinks that his tweets and posts reach 60M plus voters, they are sadly mistaken. Trump is used to measuring his results by ratings where he does something crazy then tracks the feedback via the Nielsen's return. But the Clinton campaign will be out there vigorously getting their voters who they know down to their work schedule out to the polls. Even if they have to carry them by piggyback, the Clinton team will get their voters out.
Detail is not Donald Trump’s strong suit and that is obvious in his campaign. For this reason, his ground game is viewed as an unnecessary expense. It is also the biggest indicator that he is not a politician.
Hillary Clinton will be the 45th President of the United States of America.