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Trump’s Math Problem
Key segments of Trump’s base are fleeing.
Elections are an exercise in addition. That’s a problem for Team Trump.
The president is perpetually trying to win the Republican primary. Somebody within Trump’s orbit needs to instruct him that even the most diehard members of his base can only vote once. (Unless you are from North Carolina, of course.)
The debate was no help for the president. He began relatively strongly, with an economic message and an attempt to push Biden to the left, but the near-constant interruptions, shouting, and otherwise off-putting behavior, including evoking Fox News conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, Burisma, and the mayor of Moscow, derailed any effort to win the middle of the voting bloc. There was one president on stage that night, and it wasn’t Trump.
His most recent rally was no help, either. He told a mostly white crowd in Minnesota that they “have good genes” and referenced the “racehorse theory.”
The basic strategy behind elections have remained constant for generations. The two part plan is to feed enough political chum to your base to get them to turn out, and pivot to the ideological center enough to convince moderates, undecideds, independents, and nonvoters to push you across the finish line. Trump is only doing part one. And because of…
