Violence at Trump rallies benefits Clinton
Surveys show Dem getting a boost from anti-mogul wave
Violence at Donald Trump’s campaign events and the ensuing controversy did not slow his march toward the Republican nomination, but it may have helped Hillary Clinton in her pursuit of the Democratic nod.
The boost that Trump has given Clinton was suggested in surveys of Tuesday voters. In Ohio, the industrial state inwhich Clinton and her challenger Bernie Sanders fought most fierce ly, twothirds of voters said that Clinton was the strongest candidate to defeat Trump, and those voters went for her by a factor of 4 to 1.
More than half the Ohio elector ate actually embraced Sanders’ main argument in the state, that trade deals such as those Clinton has backed in the past had cost American jobs. But the majority of those voters sided with Clinton anyway.
Those who made up their minds on Election Day, and thus were most influenced by recent events, also went easily for Clinton over Sanders. All told, it suggested something of a cascade toward the former secretary of state as Trump has dominated news coverage of the campaign. Pivot to Trump
The 2016 race has been marked by gyrations, and it’s possible that there is another turn in store for Clinton. But it was hard to imagine a better setting for a Sanders victory than Ohio after his upset victory last week in Michigan. And, still, the Vermont senator, who had expended much time and money in the state, fell flat.
Clinton’s victory in Ohio, together with thumping wins in Florida and North Carolina as well as a narrow one in Illinois, was important for both political and psychological reasons.
Clinton has maintained a strong lead in delegates throughout the primary season and has an additional advantage in her sweeping lead among party officials who serve as superdelegates, unbound by primary results. But she must still unify a party in which much of the passion has come from Sanders’ selfdescribed “revolutionary” candidacy
Winning in states that Democrats must carry in November’s general election makes that unifying task much easier. That would make her nomination one of acclamation rather than insider pull.
For Republicans caught in the midst of a civil war, meanwhile, Trump continued to soar above his opponents. He vanquished oneof them as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio suffered an embarrassing ly distant second-place finish in his home state and left the race. That development, too, could count as a Clinton victory of sorts, given how concerned Democrats had been about facing the young, fresh-faced Rubio in the general election. GOP tug of war
The GOP race now features a tug of war below Trump between Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is trying to consolidate the non-Trump factions of the party, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whose win in his home state Tuesday gave him fresh reason to stay in the race.
Both Clinton and Trump came into Tuesday’s voting with some- thing to prove — Clinton that her humbling loss in Michigan was a fluke and Trump that yet another crisis would not weaken his hold on his voters. Both accomplished what they set out to do, and both tried to turn attention Tuesday night to the general election.
That move is in both of their interests. For Clinton, the supposition that she will be the nominee, the increasingly likely Democratic outcome, could cause as low decline in support for Sanders, since undecided voters tend to gravitate to awinner.
Apart from a glancing congratulation to Sanders, Clinton spent her entire victory speech aimed at November and the prospect of a show down with Trump.
“Our commander in chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it,” she said. She cited Trump’s support for deporting the estimated 11 million immigrants here illegally and for banning noncitizen Muslims from entering the country.
“That doesn’ t make him strong; that makes him wrong,” she said. “To be great, we can’t be small; we can’t lose what made America great in the first place.”
Then, as if her reference to Trump’s campaign slogan didn’t make her target clear enough, she said: “This isn’t just about Donald Trump. All of us have to do our part.” But of course, it was about Donald Trump.
Trump, for his part, opened his election-night remarks by praising Rubio, whom he had derided for weeks as “Little Marco,” and telling his audience that he had recently spoken with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. That was his way of suggesting his nomination was all but inevitable, which it may well be.
He bragged that he’d won despite a multimillion-dollar array of ads against him. And he reminded Republicans that his candidacy has drawn in more and different voters to cast Republican ballots this year. Implicit in that, of course, is that if he is stripped of the nomination, those voters will depart, and the party will lose its third straight presidential election.
“We have a great opportunity,” he said.
No path to the presidency?
But the truth is not that simple. There’s a reason that Clinton wants to turn to the general election, and it is Trump — specifically, his unpopularity among a broad swath of American voters.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last week found that two-thirds of registered voters could not see themselves supporting Trump in a general election. (Clinton’s number wasn’t great, either, but at 56 percent hers was lower than Trump’s.)
No nominee in the history of polling has ever begun a presidential campaign with negative impressions as widespread as Trump has now.
In exit polls conducted in Ohio, perhaps the most significant state in the fall election, 3 in 10 GOP vot-. ers said they would not vote for Trump. In Florida, the secondranking state in general-election importance, a quarter of Republican voters said they could not cast a ballot for him.
Unless he can find a way to turn them around, those sorts of losses within his own party, coupled with huge opposition within Democratic constituencies such as minority voters and women, would give Trump no path to the presidency.