Five ways and 100 days that could put Trump into the White House
WITH 100 days until United States voters decide who will be their next commander-in-chief, Donald Trump’s Republican campaign is ready to attack on the five main fronts he believes will help him win the White House.
As the clock counting down to the Nov 8 election ticks, Mr Trump will visit key states to recruit disaffected Bernie Sanders-loving Democrats, to exploit anger among white workingclass men, to fire up the huge gun-owning population, to capitalise on post-Brexit fervour. And to promise jobs.
Hillary Clinton set out her stall last week as the reliable, experienced candidate at the Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia. She can expect a bounce in support after her performance, but experts increasingly believe the race will go down to the wire in a handful of, mostly working-class, battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Mr Trump will portray the former secretary of state as the embodiment of a failing “status quo”, a candidate out of touch with an America in crisis, and while Mrs Clinton will praise the achievements of President Obama, Mr Trump will argue that Americans are struggling, frustrated, and fed up. At the Democratic convention, supporters of Mr Sanders found an unexpected advert popping up on their phones: a 15-second video message, from Donald Trump.
“Hillary’s Washington insiders rigged the system,” it read. “Bernie never had a chance. More corruption by Hillary and her cronies. She wants you to just roll over.”
The Sanders backers were targeted after being identified by an advertising agency through records of their previous internet use. Mr Trump’s clever and hi-tech gambit cost $400,000 (£302,000), and the tactic will be expanded to large numbers of Sanders voters in eight key states.
At the convention the hatred of some “Berners” for Mrs Clinton was palpable. “Liar!” shout- ed one as she took the stage. Others walked out or staged sit-down protests, their mouths covered in tape to suggest that they had been silenced.
At a pro-Sanders protest, a man shouted “Make America Great Again!” and others chanted the anti-Clinton slogan “Lock Her Up!” and “Screw the status quo”.
“Hillary’s competent but I just don’t trust her,” one Sanders delegate told
“She’s a politician. ‘Poli’ means many and ‘tics’ are insects. Trump isn’t a politician.” Conventional wisdom says Republicans must broaden their base to win, reaching out especially to America’s growing Hispanic population, and to women. Mr Trump may have already burned those bridges with a series of controversial remarks, but his team believes he can win by doubling down on his core constituencies instead. Democrat strategists fear a wave of first time voters, mostly white men, will turn out for Trump. “There are 100 million couch potatoes,” said Mark Penn, Mrs Clinton’s chief strategist in her 2008 campaign. “These are people who could vote but don’t feel like it. Many of them are workingclass whites.”
Mr Trump, in wild speeches broadcast into their homes, will stoke their anger to get them off the couch. The “angry white men” were in force at the Republican convention in Cleveland.
Chris, an electrician from Ohio, said he voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Eight years later, and he was standing outside the Republican hall telling a group of anti-Trump protesters to “stay on the other side of the wall”.
“There is a war in this country against white Christian men. I’ll be at the polls, you’d better believe it.” Crying out for change: Republican candidate Donald Trump holds sixmonth-old Evelyn Kate Keane and her three-month-old cousin Kellen Campbell after his speech in Colorado Springs, Colorado to assuage them, saying in her speech: “I’m not here to repeal the Second Amendment, and I’m not here to take your guns.” Many do not believe her.
For Mr Trump, who has the enthusiastic endorsement of the National Rifle Association, the issue is an open door. Every time a terror attack takes place in the world over the next three months, he intends to loudly reaffirm his view that Americans should own more guns not fewer, to make them safer.
“I’d vote for a Democrat if they had a decent candidate,” said one man legally carrying a rifle in the street in Cleveland. “Gun-owners are not irrational people. I’m a normal guy … and there are lots of us.” Jesse Gonzales, 26, who was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, added: “This isn’t just about guns, it’s about Constitutional rights. Where does it stop if Hillary takes the guns? Trump will protect our rights.”