New York Times
By Michael Barbaro, Nate Cohn, and Jeremy Peters
August 22, 2015
In
the command centers of Republican presidential campaigns, aides have
drawn comfort from the belief that Donald J. Trump’s dominance in the
polls is a political summer
fling, like Herman Cain in 2011 — an unsustainable boomlet dependent on
megawatt celebrity, narrow appeal and unreliable surveys of Americans
with a spotty record of actually voting in primaries.
A growing body of evidence suggests that may be wishful thinking.
A
review of public polling, extensive interviews with a host of his
supporters in two states and a new private survey that tracks voting
records all point to the conclusion
that Mr. Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically
diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that
bridges demographic and political divides. In doing so, he has
effectively insulated himself from the consequences of
startling statements that might instantly doom rival candidates.
In
poll after poll of Republicans, Mr. Trump leads among women, despite
having used terms like “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” to denigrate
some of them. He leads
among evangelical Christians, despite saying he had never had a reason
to ask God for forgiveness. He leads among moderates and
college-educated voters, despite a populist and anti-immigrant message
thought to resonate most with conservatives and less-affluent
voters. He leads among the most frequent, likely voters, even though
his appeal is greatest among those with little history of voting.
The
unusual character of Mr. Trump’s coalition by no means guarantees his
campaign will survive until next year’s primaries, let alone beyond. The
diversity of his coalition
could even be its undoing, if his previous support for liberal policies
and donations to Democrats, for example, undermine his support among
conservatives. And in the end, the polling suggests, Mr. Trump will run
into a wall: Most Republicans do not support
his candidacy and seem unlikely ever to do so. Even now, more say they
definitely would not vote for him than say they support him.
But
the breadth of Mr. Trump’s coalition is surprising at a time of
religious, ideological and geographic divisions in the Republican Party.
It suggests he has the potential
to outdo the flash-in-the-pan candidacies that roiled the last few
Republican nominating contests. And it hints at the problem facing his
competitors and the growing pressure on them to confront him, as
several, like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, are starting
to do.
His
support is not tethered to a single issue or sentiment: immigration,
economic anxiety or an anti-establishment mood. Those factors may have
created conditions for
his candidacy to thrive, but his personality, celebrity and boldness,
not merely his populism and policy stances, have let him take advantage
of them.
Tellingly,
when asked to explain support for Mr. Trump in their own words, voters
of varying backgrounds used much the same language, calling him “ballsy”
and saying they
admired that he “tells it like it is” and relished how he “isn’t
politically correct.”
Trumpism, the data and interviews suggest, is an attitude, not an ideology.
For
voters like Jan Mannarino, a 65-year-old retired teacher who drove an
hour from her home in Green Oak Township, Mich., to see Mr. Trump this
month, his defiance of
political norms is his single greatest virtue.
“Even
if he doesn’t win, he’s teaching other politicians to stop being
politicians,” Ms. Mannarino said. “He comes on strong. He could say it
gently. But I think no one
would listen.”
When
people talk about the qualities Mr. Trump would bring to the White
House, they describe the raging, merciless executive who fired people
for sport on television.
Some mention trips to his golf courses, which they admiringly note are
impeccably run. A common refrain: “He’s a person who gets things done.”
“We
don’t need a politician for president; we need a businessman,” said Tom
Krzyminski, 66, a hairstylist from Bay City, Mich. “That’s what we need
to get us out of the
mess we’re in.”
A
New York Times review of nine nonpartisan national polls and more
public surveys in the early nominating states shows that, thus far, Mr.
Trump is outperforming his
Republican rivals with constituencies they were widely expected to
dominate.
For
example, he leads Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a hero to fiscal
conservatives, among Tea Party supporters, 26 percent to 13 percent,
according to averages of the last
nine national polls. He leads former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a
former preacher, among evangelicals, 21 percent to 12 percent. And he is
ahead of Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor and a favorite of
mainstream donors, among moderate Republicans,
22 percent to 16 percent.
National
polls, and both public and partisan pollsters, have struggled to
unravel the precise sources of Mr. Trump’s support, leaving many to
ascribe it to anger and angst
in the Republican electorate. But interviews with voters highlight the
degree to which his popularity hinges on personality — and offer an
answer to an enduring mystery: Why haven’t Mr. Trump’s outrageous
statements, his lack of loyalty to the Republican Party
and his caustic attacks on rivals hurt his standing?
His
most offensive utterances have, for many Republicans, confirmed his
status as a unique outsider willing to challenge conventions, and
satisfied a craving for plain-spoken
directness.
Asked
if Mr. Trump had crossed a line with his language, Carl Tomanelli, 68, a
retired New York City police officer in Londonderry, N.H., seemed
surprised by the question.
“People
are starting to see, I believe, that all this political correctness is
garbage,” he said. “I think he’s echoing what a lot of people feel and
say.”
Many say they support Mr. Trump because of his unusual statements, not in spite of them.
Lisa Carey, 51, of Greenfield, N.H., immediately cited Mr. Trump’s outspokenness when asked why his support remains so high.
“As
inappropriate as some of his comments are, I think it’s stuff that a
lot of people are thinking but afraid to say,” she said. “And I’m a
woman.”
Asked
if they think his brashness would make it more difficult for him to
work effectively as president, many voters argue the opposite.
“I
want people who are negotiating with him to believe my president when
he says he’s going to do something,” said Lori Szostkiewicz, 54, an
educator from Hampstead, N.H.
“I want to negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness.”
In
interviews with voters in Michigan and New Hampshire over the past two
weeks, after events hosted by Mr. Trump, none cited his policies as
chief motivation for backing
him. Many pointed, instead, to his wealth, saying they believed it set
him apart from career politicians and freed him of the demands of
donors.
“He doesn’t need anybody’s money,” said Maureen Colcord, 60, a clinical dietitian from Derry.
Even
as dozens of national and state polls have charted Mr. Trump’s steady
ascent, Republican campaigns have taken solace in their conviction that
those surveys are flawed
and misleading. In interviews, campaign pollsters argue that such
polls, conducted largely by media organizations and universities, rely
on feedback from many Republicans who are unlikely to vote because the
polls do not verify the party registration or voting
history of respondents — a fact that those conducting the surveys
concede.
New
data provided to The Times by Civis Analytics, a firm aligned with
Democrats and founded by the former chief analytics officer of the Obama
re-election campaign, shows
that there is merit to those concerns, but not enough to call Mr.
Trump’s lead into question. Curious about the Republican primary
landscape, the firm decided to see what it could learn from its own
survey, at first for internal research purposes.
Unlike
most public polls, Civis’s relied on a list of registered voters that
included their voting histories, allowing it to measure Mr. Trump’s
support among those who
regularly cast ballots in primary elections.
The
survey, which was conducted on landlines Aug. 10 through Wednesday and
has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points,
showed Mr. Trump’s support
at 16 percent among registered voters who identified as Republicans.
That tally is less than any public poll in more than a month, but still
more than any other candidate. Ben Carson was at 11 percent, and Mr.
Bush at 10 percent.
A
poll weighted to reflect the characteristics of the adult population,
like most conducted for national media organizations, would have shown
Mr. Trump faring some two
points better than the Civis data, which was adjusted to reflect the
characteristics of registered voters who identify as Republicans. The
survey included 757 Republican-leaning respondents, considerably more
than other polls of the Republican presidential
field.
“In
reality his real support is less than what we see in the polling
today,” said Masahiko Aida, lead survey scientist for Civis.
The
Civis poll also hinted at a potential problem for Mr. Trump: states
that allow only registered Republicans to participate in nominating
contests, including Iowa and
Nevada. He was at 14 percent among registered Republicans in the states
with party registration, compared to 18 percent of the voters who were
unaffiliated with a party.
As
expected, Mr. Trump performed best among less-frequent voters. He had
the support of 22 percent of Republican-leaning adults who did not vote
in the 2012 general election.
But he still held an edge, with 15 percent, among registered
Republicans who had voted in a primary since 2008.
“Whether the person voted in two or eight or 12 elections, Trump leads,” Mr. Aida said.
His
falloff in support when infrequent voters were sifted out was not
unique: Support for some of Mr. Trump’s rivals, including Mr. Bush and
Mr. Carson, declined by similar
amounts, or even more, among the most frequent voters, Civis found.
Mr.
Trump’s strength among less-frequent voters is a challenge for his
campaign, which may lack the organizing experience and infrastructure to
motivate them and turn
them out in large numbers for a primary or caucus.
But
those irregular voters, like Norman Kas-mikha, 41, a grocer from Shelby
Township, Mich., represent a real opportunity for the Republican Party,
which is determined
to retake the White House in 2016 after losing the last two campaigns.
“Right now I don’t have a second choice,” Mr. Kas-mikha said. “They all blend in to me. It’s Donald Trump — and everyone else.”
“My second choice,” he added, “might be staying at home.”
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