Disaster Looms for GOP as Donald Trump is Turning
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Disaster Looms for GOP as Donald Trump is Turning Swing States Blue
By Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Mon, Jul 4th, 2016 at 7:56 am
The man documentary filmmaker Ken Burns calls a “super-predator” continues to leave a swath of destruction behind him. Whether it’s using an anti-Semitic ad to attack rival Hillary Clinton or alienating entire ethnic groups with slurs, or, as Ken Burns says, even lusting “after his own daughter,” Trump is making a lasting, and often negative, impression, on millions of American voters.
Trump, of course, continues to respond with grade-school level attacks on all his critics. He spent July 3 issuing tweet after tweet about how “THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED!” (yes, all in caps) and “The system is totally rigged & corrupt!” This from a guy who makes a living out of not paying his bills and gets away with it because he is white and rich.
For a guy who is supposed to be so strong, he sure spends a lot of time whining about how unfair the world is.
But what is really going to hurt him on Election Day is turning what were once swing states into blue states. Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), and Colorado (9), all voted for Bush in 2004. There are 20 electoral votes at stake in those three states. Trump needs 270.
There are an awful lot of people Trump called “rapists” in the Southwest. In fact, Pew reported in January that “The Hispanic population in Colorado is the eighth largest in the nation,” that “Colorado’s population is 21% Hispanic,” and worst of all for Trump, “There are 555,000 Hispanic eligible voters in Colorado” – 15 percent of the total number of eligible voters in the state.
On July 1 Trump tweeted, “Just returned from Colorado. Amazing crowd!” Amazing crowd, sure. He says that so often it has become largely meaningless. And it glosses over what is really happening in Colorado.
Right now, just when Trump needs voters the most, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Colorado.
For the first time in 20 years.
Sure, there are a lot of what Fox News identifies as “white Christian Americans” in Colorado, but it’s not just Democrats Trump needs to worry about, but Republicans. The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that state GOP Chairman Steve House said,
“We call it the Frontier State for a reason. There’s a lot of independently minded thinkers out here. We have a lot of unaffiliated voters for a reason. I think that it’s just that we have delegates who are not convinced he’s the right guy.”
Trump can’t stop bragging about his record-setting vote total in the primaries, but the votes cast during the primaries won’t get him elected – or even nominated. And complaining the system is rigged while himself trying to employ imaginary dictatorial powers, isn’t going to change anything.
The fact is, Trump’s campaign is operating on a shoestring, and his mouth is his own worst enemy. The Denver Post just reported that party operatives are saying “his campaign lags Hillary Clinton in organization.”
The contrast is most acute with the candidates themselves. Clinton established a beachhead in the Centennial State about 10 months ago; Trump hired his Colorado state director on Wednesday. The head start gives Clinton an advantage on several fronts — from fundraising to voter registration to data collection.
It is almost as though anything other than shooting his mouth off is an afterthought to Donald Trump.
The reality star tweeted Sunday that he had “Just watched @meetthepress and how totally biased against me Chuck Todd, and the entire show, is against me,” but he won’t do anything to help himself. He’d rather offend everybody and then complain that nobody likes him. Hardly a recipe for success.
Trump’s rhetoric is a recipe for disaster, however. Locked now into a no-holds, no-apology speaking style that riles up his base but alienates everyone else, all he can do is watch his campaign unravel while he keeps his base happy. And whine a lot.
Trump, meanwhile, told Colorado crowds, “We do have to win Colorado. I will be back a lot, don’t worry about it. I will be back a lot.”
But Trump’s presence is a two-edged sword, and just the act of opening his mouth hurts him as much as it helps him. If the GOP can’t dump Trump, his turning swing states blue will mean they pay not only in this election, but in future elections.