On a lackluster evening for Donald Trump, one fact stands out as particularly ominous: Trump won a massive victory among people who voted early in Louisiana. But among those who went to the ballot box on election day itself, Trump tied with Ted Cruz. That strongly suggests that Trump’s campaign is taking on water.
Trump’s evidently declining support probably has something to do with the sustained fire he’s been receiving from Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. (Though those attacks have done nothing to buoy Rubio himself.) But Trump may have also made a political miscalculation over the past week or so, as well. He’s become so confident in winning the Republican nomination, it appears, that he’s aggressively moving to the political center. He’s shaking the famed etch-a-sketch.
Consider: He lavished praise on Planned Parenthood during his Super Tuesday victory news conference. (Last summer, meanwhile, he said he supported shutting down the government unless federal subsidies to Planned Parenthood were scuttled.) He reversed his position on killing the families of terrorists. And most damagingly to his electoral prospects, given the theme he’s built his campaign on, he promised “flexibility” on immigration.
All of that would be fine as a general election strategy, except Trump is being rather premature. While he does very well among independents, as Saturday’s results demonstrated, Trump can’t afford to surrender too many conservative votes yet. You have to win the nomination before you can etch-a-sketch in earnest. Trump, for all the victories he’s notched so far, hasn’t yet done that.
