A Republican Should Target These Voters

Although his piece mischaracterizes the demographic as "conservative," Mark Penn correctly describes how Trump won the 2016 nomination with suburban voters as an apparent moderate -- and how a non-Trump nominee can target such voters to win the nomination:

Image by Nikola Knezevic, via Unsplash, license.

[Trump's] weakness is with the very voters who once were his most enthusiastic supporters. But his opponents have failed to understand this and, so far, have tried to outflank him on the right, which has failed. This is why DeSantis, once the anticipated Trump-slayer, lost out as he failed to get the very-conservative voters and lost the more moderate support that was ready to back him.

A review of the recent Wall Street Journal poll of Republican primary voters shows they are a majority of suburban voters and, while more working-class voters have joined them, they still are a more highly educated group than the electorate as a whole, with 54% who are college graduates or more. They are definitely an older party, with 68% of the GOP voters over 50, but 49% are women and 75% of them are married. How plausible is it that this group of older, highly educated suburban family voters are going to return Trump to office if presented with a more compelling alternative? [bold added]

The path to victory is narrow, but Penn argues that it might be viable once what he calls the "rally-around-the-indictments effect" wears off.

I'm not sure how strong such an effect is with educated voters, nor that it will wear off at all for his core constituency, given Trump's ... prowess ... at playing the victim and that group's blind loyalty. So, I guess if he means some of these voters might be momentarily reacting to the politicizing of the trial by left-wing partisans, I could agree with him: The ideal target voters will know that both of Trump is probably guilty and It's a shame the Democrats are gilding that lily by politicizing are true.

-- CAV