By David Sherfinski |The Washington Times
A Hispanic supporter holds up a sign for
Trump during a rally. (AP File Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A wounded Democratic Party is terrified that President Trump has laid the groundwork for an expansion of the Republican base in the 2020s, said a veteran pollster.
Despite his apparent loss on Nov. 3, Mr. Trump made
significant inroads with Hispanic and Black voters. The GOP also managed to
stave off disaster by holding on to several vulnerable Senate seats and
picking up seats in the House.
“The expansion of the base is a really, really big story
and I think it shows real inroads and I think it scares the heck out of the
Democratic Party,” said Jim McLaughlin, a veteran Republican pollster who did
work for the Trump campaign.
Some analysts have tried to explain presumptive
President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s underperformance in Florida’s Miami-Dade
County by pointing to South Florida’s conservative Cuban American population.
But Mr. McLaughlin said the president’s support among Hispanics
is broader than that.
“He got a lot of non-Cuban Hispanics because he talked to
them, he went down there, he made them a priority,” he said.
Exit polls show Mr. Trump won
an estimated 32% of the Hispanic vote, which is the largest share for a GOP
presidential nominee since 2004.
Mr. McLaughlin said he would hear over and over again
from Florida focus groups that Mr. Biden and the Democrats sounded like
communist and socialist dictators such as Fidel Castro of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro
of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, the late leader of Venezuela.
“They would tell you that, and that wasn’t like a
once-in-a-while. It was every single time,” he said. “They hated the socialism
thing — it was a big deal.”
Hispanic immigrants come to
the U.S. for a better quality of life and want to work hard and take care of
their families, he said.
“They really got turned off by the riots and the looting
and the protests and whatnot and they would literally tell you, this is what we
left to come here,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “We saw that. It wasn’t like hey,
surprise, look what happened on Election Day.”
Exit polling also showed that Mr. Trump won
12% of Black voters, up from 8% four years ago.
“It’s not as much about their race,” Mr. McLaughlin said.
“They live in the suburbs or they live in suburban or wealthier, more affluent
urban areas. They’re more middle- to upper-middle income African Americans and
Hispanics.”
He said the president’s support among minority voters
often is small business owners or middle-to-upper management.
“They have money and it’s just like what 50 Cent said,”
he said, referring to the rapper. “50 Cent said, ‘I don’t want to be 20 Cent,’
and they got it. They want to be safe. They want to have school choice. They
want low taxes.”
Mr. McLaughlin said that both in this year’s race and in
2016, people tended to side with Mr. Trump on
the issues over Mr. Biden or 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Clinton regardless of who they thought won the presidential debates.
“On things like education and school choice, on keeping
people safe, stopping the rioting and the looting, trade issues, creating jobs
and the economy, wanting lower taxes post-COVID — the voters agree with the
Republicans here,” he said.
Mr. Trump hit
his high water mark in surveys on the economy.
…
Democrats are in a unique position in that they appear to
have clinched the presidency but fell well below expectations in several
high-profile Senate races.
They also will enter next year with a much thinner majority in the House.
Republicans will maintain control of the Senate unless
Democrats can sweep two runoff contests on Jan. 5 in Georgia, which until Mr.
Biden’s narrow win had been reliably red for decades.
David Winston, a longtime Republican consultant and
pollster, said 2020 appears to have ended in a “bizarre outcome.”
“While the current situation looks like Biden won, his
party lost,” Mr. Winston said.
