CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — “I‘ve really had my mind set on Hillary,” Donald Trump said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on board his plane Tuesday before a rally at the University of Northern Iowa. “I’ve really been thinking in terms of her, but now I see what’s happening, and there’s a possibility that it won’t be her.”
“What’s happening,” of course, is the growing strength of Bernie Sanders, now tied with Hillary Clinton in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the Democratic race in Iowa, and leading her by 6 points in the same average of New Hampshire surveys.
“I think I’ll beat Hillary,” Trump continued. “I think Sanders actually would be easier to beat. But it makes no difference to me whatsoever … I look forward to running against whoever it is.”
It can be risky for a candidate to get ahead of himself. In December 2011, Newt Gingrich, then riding high in the polls, told ABC News, “It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I’m going to be the nominee.” Needless to say, Gingrich did not become the nominee. Voters don’t like a candidate who thinks he’s got it in the bag.
But Trump has been atop the Republican presidential race far longer than Gingrich was. And on board his 757 Tuesday, Trump mixed a sense of caution with a number of hints that he is thinking ahead to a general election.
Beyond the relative challenges of running against Clinton or Sanders, Trump also told me he’s thought about how to fund a general election campaign, about the states he could win that Mitt Romney couldn’t, and about the possibility of compromise on some of his most controversial policy proposals.
When I asked Trump whether he would self-fund in the general election, as he is doing in the primary race, he at first said he hadn’t given it much thought. But he continued, “It’s a much different kind of thing, because there you have a party backing you, and it seems sort of a little bit, maybe, foolish to say that instead of the party backing you, put up your own money. But it’s something that I am thinking about already. I mean, I’m looking at the poll numbers and I’m starting to think a little bit ahead, although I don’t want to go too far ahead. But it’s something I am thinking about.”
It’s common for political strategists to talk of a “pivot” from a primary campaign to a general election campaign. I asked Trump what that might mean for him. In particular, what about some of his most controversial proposals — his pledge to deport all illegal immigrants and to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States? After reading his book The Art of the Deal and listening to the various times he’s discussed his approach to compromise — ask for more than you want, so you can give up something and still be happy — I wondered whether his immigration and Muslim ban proposals were opening positions in a negotiation. Would he compromise on them?
“I’m not saying there can’t be some give and take,” Trump answered, “but at some point we have to look at these things. You look at the radical Islamic terrorism and you look at what’s going on, we have to take a serious look. There’s tremendous hatred. You look at illegal immigration and all that’s taking place with respect to illegal immigration, whether it’s the crime or the economy, I mean it affects many, many different elements. It doesn’t mean I’m hard and fast 100 percent, but we have to get a lot of what I’m asking for, or we’re not going to have a country any more.”
Does that mean yes, they are opening positions?
“They are very strong positions,” Trump said. “It doesn’t mean you’re not going to negotiate a little bit, but I guess there will always be some negotiation. But they are very strong positions. And I would adhere to those positions very strongly. That doesn’t mean that at some point we won’t talk a little bit about some negotiation. who wouldn’t do that?”
Read that as you like; Trump sounded both firm and flexible.
Sticking with a general election theme, I noted that in 2012 Romney had won just 206 electoral votes to Barack Obama’s 332. Romney lost Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia. A successful Republican nominee would have win some of them back. Which ones could Trump win?
“I think I can win all of them,” Trump said. “I have a chance of winning places that every single one of the people that I’m running against, they can’t even think about it.”
“Look at what I’m doing in Florida,” Trump continued. “I’m way ahead of Jeb Bush, way ahead of Rubio, and he’s a sitting senator and a longtime governor. In Ohio I’m way ahead of Kasich, who’s a successful governor of the state of Ohio. Pennsylvania, I’m doing great, and I think that we’re going to win Pennsylvania. I think we’re going to win Virginia. I have a lot of property in Virginia, I have a lot of jobs in Virginia, frankly. I employ a lot — I have thousands and thousands of people that I employ. Virginia just happens to be one of those places.”
In addition, Trump told me he believes he would have a “real chance” of winning New York. (The last time a Republican carried the state was the Reagan landslide of 1984.) “Now, you win New York, you have a whole new deal because of the size of that state,” Trump said. “I don’t know if you saw it, there was recently an article where upstate New York, I mean just absolutely — I mean, they like me, I like them. It’s one of those things. I think I can do great in New York.”
Each time he got to talking about November, Trump stepped back to caution himself. “I don’t want to think too much about a general election right now,” he said. “We have a long way to go. So I’m not thinking too much in advance, other than I think I can win a lot of states that a lot of other people can’t win.”
“People are saying that I may get 20 percent of the Democrat vote,” Trump said. “And I believe that is maybe true, and maybe even on the light side. So I think I’ll be able to do things that no other Republican is able to do.”
General election? Hillary or Bernie? Even though he has led the GOP polls for months, Trump is entering the most dangerous period of his candidacy — the time when voters actually vote. Some political insiders believe Trump’s supporters, drawn mostly by his celebrity, won’t show up at the caucuses and polls. And even if the voters are willing, it’s the Trump team’s job to turn them out in large numbers. No one knows how well they will do that.
Beyond that, Trump could flame out; just because he has been impervious to political controversy so far doesn’t mean he will always be. Or he could begin a slow slide. In other words, there are a million things that can go wrong between now and the primaries, much less a general election. But with a lead like his, Donald Trump can’t help thinking.
