The most remarkable thing about Trump’s performance wasn’t that he took positions uncommon for a Republican, Brad Todd, a Virginia-based consultant who ran the super PAC supporting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal until his campaign ended in November, told me. It was that the putative frontrunner for the Republican nomination was making no effort to expand his appeal to other GOP constituencies by winning over his opponents’ supporters, as Political Strategy 101 would dictate after a big primary win. “Instead, he was more combative than ever before,” Todd said. “This is not a guy who’s trying to get to 50 [percent]. He’s trying to maintain the cult of Donald Trump, defined as being different from all these other people.”
Todd’s analysis reminded me of something Harris, the Rubio adviser, told me a couple of weeks back. The electorate, he said, was like a pie divided into different slices. But one of the slices was made of titanium—that was Trump’s share. It wouldn’t get much smaller, but it wouldn’t get bigger either. The others were all malleable and would grow as they merged.
Taking the metaphor too far, I pointed out that it’s difficult to unslice a pie. Harris considered this. “It’s a Key lime pie,” he said.
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