Donald J. Trump’s support among white men, the linchpin of his presidential campaign, is showing surprising signs of weakness that could foreclose his only remaining path to victory in November.
If not reversed, the trend could materialize into one of the most unanticipated developments of the 2016 presidential campaign: That Hillary Clinton, the first woman at the head a major party ticket and a divisive figure unpopular with many men, ends up narrowing the gender gap that has been a constant of American presidential elections for decades.
Surveys of voters nationwide and in battleground states conducted over the last two weeks showed that Mr. Trump was even with or below where Mitt Romney, the Republican Party nominee four years ago, was with white men when he won that demographic by an overwhelming 27 percentage points. For Mr. Trump, who has staked much of his legitimacy as a candidate on his strength in the polls, the numbers are a dose of cold, dangerous math. If he does not perform any better than Mr. Romney did with white men, he will almost certainly be unable to rally the millions of disaffected white voters he says will propel him to the White House.
All along, one of the central questions of the election has been whether there are enough white men who will turn out to vote to lift Mr. Trump to victory. And there may be enough, demographers and pollsters said. But for now it appears that after a ceaseless stream of provocations, insults and reckless remarks, Mr. Trump has damaged himself significantly with the one demographic that stands as a bulwark to a Clinton presidency.
“If you set out to design a strategy to produce the lowest popular vote possible in the new American electorate of 2016, you would be hard-pressed to do a better job than Donald Trump has,” said Whit Ayres, a pollster who has advised Republican presidential and Senate candidates for more than 25 years. “This is an electoral disaster waiting to happen.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...akness/ar-BBvMotQ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
If not reversed, the trend could materialize into one of the most unanticipated developments of the 2016 presidential campaign: That Hillary Clinton, the first woman at the head a major party ticket and a divisive figure unpopular with many men, ends up narrowing the gender gap that has been a constant of American presidential elections for decades.
Surveys of voters nationwide and in battleground states conducted over the last two weeks showed that Mr. Trump was even with or below where Mitt Romney, the Republican Party nominee four years ago, was with white men when he won that demographic by an overwhelming 27 percentage points. For Mr. Trump, who has staked much of his legitimacy as a candidate on his strength in the polls, the numbers are a dose of cold, dangerous math. If he does not perform any better than Mr. Romney did with white men, he will almost certainly be unable to rally the millions of disaffected white voters he says will propel him to the White House.
All along, one of the central questions of the election has been whether there are enough white men who will turn out to vote to lift Mr. Trump to victory. And there may be enough, demographers and pollsters said. But for now it appears that after a ceaseless stream of provocations, insults and reckless remarks, Mr. Trump has damaged himself significantly with the one demographic that stands as a bulwark to a Clinton presidency.
“If you set out to design a strategy to produce the lowest popular vote possible in the new American electorate of 2016, you would be hard-pressed to do a better job than Donald Trump has,” said Whit Ayres, a pollster who has advised Republican presidential and Senate candidates for more than 25 years. “This is an electoral disaster waiting to happen.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...akness/ar-BBvMotQ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
