Yes, most of the traditional Republican voters who held their noses and voted for Trump in 2016 will do so again this time. They like their judges and their tax cuts and their reduced regulations and find the Never Trump types extremely tiresome with all their dire talk about norms, values, and institutions. They’ll say that those people have Trump Derangement Syndrome. Why don’t you all just go be Democrats already!
But here’s the thing: That’s what a lot of now-former Republicans have done.
Politics is about addition, not subtraction. That’s always been true, but it’s especially true when you start out with a coalition that’s 3 million votes in the hole. Trump has never expanded beyond his base and many of those voters who rolled the dice on him in 2016 aren’t coming back for more.
In fact, I went back and surveyed our focus group participants since April. Of the 76 women who voted for Trump in 2016, only 36 are voting for President Trump again; 28 are voting for Joe Biden; 8 are going for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen; and 2 aren’t voting / are writing someone in. (Side note: 30 of these respondents were from Pennsylvania. Only 14 from that group were voting for Trump again.)
