As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton fix their fire on each other following their respective primary slogs, each has sounded the alarm about the danger of electing the other in November.
But the pair of presumptive nominees share more in common than their rancorous rhetoric suggests. They have many weaknesses in common.
Both of the candidates are old: Trump would be 70 upon election, Clinton would be 69. Both carry decades of tabloid baggage. And both are attempting to craft populist messages that appeal to the proletariat despite each having amassed great wealth through self-promotion: Clinton with highly-paid speeches, Trump with reality television.
Because Trump and Clinton bring to the 2016 race many similar characteristics that have traditionally been considered negative, the two New Yorkers may struggle to launch conventional attacks on each other.
“Some things will probably cancel each other out, but then there will be other things that will be litigated during this campaign, and they should be,” said Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist.
For example, Thornell said Trump would be “taking a risk” if he chose to dredge up some of the more salacious headlines from the Clintons’ past.
“I think that Donald Trump has signaled that he’s going to go to there with the Clintons, and I think that’s a bad move,” he said. “I think that opens him up to a level of scrutiny in his personal life that he may not want.”
Trump, who is presently on his third marriage, famously cheated on his first wife with the woman who would become his second. The real estate mogul has left a tabloid trail of dalliances with beautiful women that could return to haunt him if he began goading Clinton for her husband’s infamous infidelity.
While Clinton continues to take considerable fire for the volume and timing of donations to her family’s charity, Trump may be unable to use the Clinton Foundation as an effective cudgel so long as an organization bearing his name, Trump University, is also under scrutiny for allegedly mishandling funds.
Neither candidate can credibly accuse the other of collecting powerful friends for professional gain, as Trump has openly admitted that the political donations of his past were meant to curry favors and Clinton has spent decades cultivating relationships into a political empire.
One Democratic strategist said the election fight would take place “on the margins” given the similarities between Clinton and Trump.
“Both of these candidates are universally known,” the strategist said. “What that means is, changing the public’s opinion of both of them is going to be hard.”
Because neither Trump nor Clinton will be able to define the other known quantity, the candidates will be forced to focus on making small shifts within specific “issues and qualities,” the strategist said.
But others suggested the rivals’ high profiles could provide enough fodder to unleash a more vicious campaign.
“I think this is going to be a very nasty general election,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.
O’Connell acknowledged that both Clinton and Trump have weathered their share of controversies, but argued Clinton is at a greater disadvantage because hers have taken place in the political arena.
“Her negatives are more baked in the cake because her negatives are more politically related,” he said. “She’s viewed completely through the prism of politics, and he’s viewed through prisms other than politics.”
“That just gives him more of an upside as they try to mud-sling at each other,” O’Connell added.
Despite all their similarities, Clinton and Trump stepped into their respective primaries from drastically different positions.
Clinton kicked off her White House bid in April 2015 as the runaway favorite to clinch the nomination with ease before a groundswell of support for her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, exposed many of her weaknesses and temporarily placed her crown in jeopardy.
Trump entered the fray as a punchline to most in political media before rising above more than a dozen well-qualified opponents to become the presumptive nominee months after soothsayers predicted his campaign would end.
But both candidates have ended up in the same place: struggling to woo their party’s traditional base and instead, seeking support from the outside.
As Clinton has labored to court progressives, she has begun calling on “sensible Republicans” to flee their party’s nominee and vote for her. And as Trump has battled to win over conservatives, he has pursued blue-collar Democrats who may be fed up with the status quo.
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Romney’s 2008 campaign, suggested Trump is still likely to drive the election narrative through a series of attacks, even if those attacks remind voters of his own flaws.
“If we were to predict just based on how the respective party primaries have been conducted, it seems clear that Trump excels at controlling the pace of the campaign and dictating the terms of the overall debate,” Madden said. “Clinton, on the other hand, has been cautious and more reactive in her approach. She tried to ignore Sanders until she couldn’t anymore.”
Madden said Trump’s media manipulation “has ensured this has been a substance-free campaign.”
“He constantly attacks and forces his opponents to react and the media to follow,” he said. “We’ve seen entire two-week news coverage cycles focused on singular tweets sent out by Trump.”
