Whit Ayres’ comments to Ron Brownstein of CNN regarding President Trump’s ability to appeal beyond his base and win reelection in 2020:
Absent a major world event, or a dramatic change in the economy, few in either party expect those hardened patterns to shift much by the 2020 election. Republican pollster Whit Ayres offered a view widely shared among professionals on both sides when he was asked how much capacity Trump has to expand his support by the next election. “Virtually no ability,” Ayres said, “without a change in behavior or some stunning new event that shocks the political system.”
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But the stability of attitudes toward Trump underscores how unlikely he is to accomplish any of those things before 2020. And his single-minded focus on the border wall — which has almost never attracted support from more than 45% of the country in any major poll during his presidency — illuminates how limited is his commitment to even pursuing such unity. “He is very comfortable reinforcing and energizing the people who are already with him at the expense of reaching beyond them to those who are not already on his side,” notes Ayres.
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Like many Republicans, Ayres believes Democrats could choose a polarizing nominee “who is incapable of consolidating” the roughly 55% or slightly more of the country that has consistently expressed resistance to Trump. That could encourage some of the voters uneasy about Trump to splinter toward a third party candidate, such as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who is openly pondering a bid. Even in that scenario, Ayres notes, Trump would face a very tight squeeze if he can’t expand his support beyond the roughly 45% of the vote he won in 2016 and GOP House candidates nationwide captured last fall. “The real question is whether you can draw to an inside straight twice in a row,” he says.
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