RSN: FOCUS: Trump Destroyed Himself

 

 

03 February 21

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FOCUS: Trump Destroyed Himself

William Saletan, Slate
Saletan writes: "Donald Trump might be in denial about who won the 2020 election, but his pollsters aren't."

Two reports by his own pollsters show why he should have won but didn’t.

 Two of them have performed autopsies on his defeat, and those autopsies are now public. One of his pollsters, John McLaughlin, published an analysis in Newsmax in November. Another report, written by consultant Tony Fabrizio, was posted on Monday by Politico. Neither pollster blames the former president, but their numbers tell the story: Trump destroyed himself.

The autopsies identified two reasons why Trump should have won. First, based on self-identification, the 2020 electorate was significantly more Republican than the 2016 electorate. Second, public satisfaction with the economy favored the incumbent. Both pollsters found that people who voted in 2020 thought Trump would handle the economy better than Joe Biden would. McLaughlin’s analysis, based on his post-election survey of people who voted in 2020, noted that 61 percent of these voters said they were better off than they had been four years earlier. Despite this, Trump managed to lose one-third of the 61 percent. “Fully 20% of all voters thought they were better off today than four years ago and did not vote for President Trump,” McLaughlin wrote.

Fabrizio analyzed exit polls from 10 battleground states Trump had won in 2016. Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas stayed with Trump in 2020; Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin flipped to Biden. Collectively, in the 10 states, Fabrizio computed a “massive swing” against Trump among independents (by 17 to 19 percentage points) and a similar shift among college-educated white voters (by 14 to 18 points). Likewise, in his national sample, McLaughlin found that Biden won moderates, 62 percent to 36 percent.

Trump repelled these voters, even those who were happy with the economy. In McLaughlin’s national sample, Biden was viewed more favorably than Trump. Among voters who disliked both candidates, the pollster noted, “dislike of Trump was more dominant.” Three-quarters of Biden voters cited character or personality traits as reasons for their voting decisions, and the reasons they gave were “mostly anti-Trump,” McLaughlin wrote. Seven percent of respondents said they had voted mostly “against Biden,” but 19 percent said they had voted mostly “against Trump.”

Fabrizio found similar results. In the battleground states, voters said by a four-point margin that Biden wasn’t “honest and trustworthy.” Trump’s deficit on the same question was much bigger: 14 to 18 points. The exit polls also indicated that Trump inspired millions of new voters to turn out, either in person or by mail, to get rid of him. Fabrizio noted that collectively, in the five states that flipped to Biden, Trump outpolled Biden among people who had voted in 2016. What killed Trump were the new voters. Biden won them by 14 points in the five decisive states.

Trump also misjudged the politics of COVID-19. Throughout the campaign, he focused on rapidly reopening the economy, often at the risk of rekindling the pandemic. That turned out to be disastrous for the country, but also for his candidacy. Fabrizio found that in the 10 battleground states, “majorities of voters … prioritized stopping the spread of [the virus] over re-opening the economy.” The virus “was the top issue” in these states, the pollster observed, “and Biden carried those voters nearly 3 to 1.” In the exit polls and in McLaughlin’s survey, voters said by significant margins that Biden would handle the virus better than Trump.

Fabrizio flagged two particularly foolish mistakes in Trump’s response to the virus. One was ridiculing masks. In the 10 battleground states, voters who favored mask mandates (Biden’s position) outnumbered those who opposed mask mandates (Trump’s position) by a ratio of three to one. The enormous pro-mask constituency went to Biden by about 30 points, on average, in the five states that flipped to him. Trump’s other dumb move was his persistent slander against Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In the five states that flipped to Biden, 72 percent of voters approved of Fauci’s job performance, and 63 percent of those voters went to Biden.

Any incumbent would have struggled with a pandemic in an election year. But Trump had everything else going for him. Despite setbacks, the economy he inherited was still strong. Congress and the Federal Reserve pumped in trillions of dollars to prop up households and businesses. Republicans turned out to vote in better numbers than in 2016. And yet, Trump managed to lose. He lost because he botched his job, picked stupid fights, and antagonized most of the country. His own pollsters have confirmed it.

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This is a long email, but I hope you'll read it

 

Dear MoveOn member,

I'm Amy White, MoveOn's Director of Analytics. I don't write to you often, but in the wake of last week's sickening Republican National Convention, I wanted to reach out to share the details about a program my team is running to put an end to Donald Trump's authoritarianism on November 3.

As the RNC confirmed last week, the GOP strategy to win is to use their billionaire donors to flood battleground states with fearmongering, racist ads and messaging to try to rally their base toward Trump.

We could never match their spending dollar for dollar—but luckily, we don't have to. Because here's the truth: The most effective and impactful campaign strategy is not sending generic, inflammatory messages far and wide, it's actually highly targeted outreach to small groups of voters who are most likely to tip swing states blue.

That's where my team comes in.

We are building models to identify "high-potential voters," with the goal of turning out 100,000 people who would otherwise not vote across the 14 most important battleground states—a goal that, if we're able to achieve it, could clinch the election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

I'll lay out all the details below, but I need to ask you now: Will you chip in $3 a week to help us power this game-changing, all-or-nothing campaign until the very last vote is counted? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)

You might be asking: What is a "high-potential voter," and how are you going to reach out to them?

Great questions!

We define "high-potential voters" as being voters and potential voters who fit one or more of these criteria:

• Voters who cast a ballot for Barack Obama in 2012 but did not vote in 2016.
• Voters who cast a ballot for a third-party candidate in recent elections.
• Voters who cast ballots in the 2018 midterms but did not vote in 2016.
• New voters who turned 18 after the 2016 election.
• Naturalized citizens who have become eligible to vote since 2016.
• And in all of these categories, we are focused specifically on younger voters and voters of color.

Through extensive research and statistical modeling, we've found a whopping 7 million voters who fit into these categories spread across the 14 most important battleground states.

Donald Trump is president today because of 10,704 votes in Michigan, 46,765 votes in Pennsylvania, and 22,177 votes in Wisconsin.¹ That means if we can get just over 1% of those 7 million people to cast ballots for the Biden-Harris ticket, Trump will almost certainly lose this time around.

One percent. That's it.

So how are we reaching out to these voters? Using powerful, personalized messaging tailored to each individual voter.

This week, for example, we're testing 18 different messages about the critical importance of defeating Trump to 850,000 voters across the battleground states to learn which messages are most effective at convincing voters to sign "Vote Tripling" pledges—pledges to vote and to help three of their friends or family to vote too.

My team and I will be able to use the data we gather from this test to target the most powerful messages to millions of individual voters based on their location, age, political leanings, and more.

We used a similar method in 2018 to send persuasive videos to potential voters in important districts and states, and in the end, that program helped to secure tens of thousands of votes for Democrats and, in turn, helped to flip control of the House.

This program is even bigger—and far more important given that a second Trump term is on the line.

But it's expensive. We have to purchase thousands of ads, send millions of text messages, create customized videos, and build statistical models—and then do it over and over again through Election Day.

That's where you come in. Can you chip in $3 a week to help us reach millions of high-potential voters with customized messages that are proven to be effective at turning out voters? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)

The newest polls since last week's RNC show that the race is tightening between Trump and Biden, and although these polls should serve as a shock to the system and a reminder that we have to push as hard as we can over the next nine weeks, my team and I were prepared for them, and we built this program to be effective in exactly this scenario.²

We always knew that this election would be close, and that—just like in 2016—victory could come down to a few thousand votes spread over just a handful of states.

Our high-potential voter program was specifically designed for a close election. That's what makes it special. We are focused on voters who would otherwise stay home on Election Day but who could be the difference between winning and losing on November 3.

I've run the tests. I've seen the numbers. I know this can work.

So I'm asking you now to take any fear or anger or anxiety you're feeling and help me to turn it into action by chipping in $3 a week to power this game-changing program. Will you chip in? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)

Thanks for all you do.

–Amy White

Sources:

1. "Donald Trump will be president thanks to 80,000 people in three states," The Washington Post, December 1, 2016
https://act.moveon.org/go/137382?t=8&akid=272944%2E3735812%2EAWLiFF

2. "Trump Pulls Closer to Biden After RNC," Morning Consult, August 29, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/143454?t=10&akid=272944%2E3735812%2EAWLiFF

Want to support our work? As Robert Reich says, “No organization in America has a better track record of success in developing cutting-edge strategies to get out the vote and win elections than MoveOn.” But it will take each of us doing our part to defeat Trump and flip the Senate!

Will you chip in $3 a week to help MoveOn combat right-wing lies, make sure every vote is counted, and win this election? (MoveOn will bill your weekly donation to your credit card once a month starting today and will contact you shortly after the election to see if you want to modify or cancel your weekly donation.)

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