A few months ago I wrote that Donald Trump was probably going to withdraw before the Iowa caucuses rather than face the embarrassment of defeat. Wrong. He did lose Iowa, seemed momentarily humbled, but then quickly reverted to form by asserting that he really won. He went on to a landslide victory in New Hampshire and now leads in South Carolina.
While much of the political world speculates that Trump may be creating a new kind of candidacy largely immune to normal attacks, let me make another assertion (that may prove as wrong as the previous): Donald Trump should be easy to defeat. What makes him not a “normal” candidate actually makes him more vulnerable rather than stronger. Let me explain.
In a Republican primary, Trump lacks both an ideological or geographic base. For all the focus on his bigoted remarks about Mexicans and Muslims, Trump has won self-identified moderate voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, he lost conservatives and very conservatives but won them in NH (in a landslide victory like he had in NH, it’s hard to win everything.) In a party that is increasingly dominated by the South and Sunbelt, Trump lives on Fifth Avenue.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member