Toward the end of a blistering attack on Donald Trump in Cleveland, President Obama laid out a path for the Republican presidential nominee to win the White House.
Democrat Hillary Clinton’s opponent, Obama said, “made it pretty clear he’s just going to drag this election as low as it can possibly go. And he figures that if he makes our politics just toxic then maybe you’ll just figure out you got no good choices and you just get discouraged and you just don’t vote.”
“But don’t fall for it,” the president said as the crowd responded, “Noooo.”
This isn’t just the usual Democratic complaint about Republicans winning because of low turnout, or worse voter suppression.
Stripped of the pejorative language about the Republican candidate, that is the Democrats’ one remaining concern as Trump continues his freefall in the polls in the wake of repeated allegations that he behaved inappropriately with multiple women, themselves coming after the release of a tape in which he boasted of conduct that could be read as sexual assault. (Trump has apologized for his comments and categorically denied all allegations against him.)
The 2016 campaign has always been about turnout. Democrats have hoped Clinton would be able to replicate the coalition that delivered the presidency to Obama in the last two elections. He depended on getting younger and minority voters to participate at a higher rate than normal, voting overwhelmingly for the Democratic ticket.
Obama succeeded twice, but it wasn’t a slam dunk both times. Four years ago, he defeated Republican Mitt Romney with just 51 percent of the popular vote. Clinton has struggled to win over millennials, who preferred her opponent Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. She has done much better with black and Hispanic voters, but has had trouble recreating their enthusiasm for Obama.
Even in 2012, a majority of Latino voters didn’t turn out for the presidential election. A Pew Research Center survey this year found that only 49 percent were “absolutely certain” they were registered to vote, compared to 80 percent of whites and 69 percent of blacks.
A Univision News poll last month found that in states where Hispanics could be crucial to Democrats retaking the Senate, a high percentage of these voters didn’t recognize the Democratic candidate. That was true for nearly six in ten Latinos in Florida, where Cuban-American Republican Marco Rubio was actually leading among Hispanics, and almost four in 10 in Arizona and Nevada.
Democrats have been optimistic that distaste for Trump, whose rhetoric about immigration and other issues has offended many Hispanic voters, would be a good substitute for Obama enthusiasm. They have seen some encouraging signs, such as a spike in Google searches for the Spanish phrase for registering to vote, but the jury is still out.
As Clinton has moved to a better than 5-point lead in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, she has compensated for any falloff in Democratic voter engagement with the fact that Trump has consistently underperformed with college-educated whites, suburban voters and Republican women. If the latest scandals continue to batter his standing with even working-class women, his path becomes very narrow.
But there does exist an alternate universe in which Trump garners plurality support. The latest Los Angeles Times/USC poll has the Republican up by 1 percentage point, taking 45 percent of the vote. Rasmussen also shows Trump narrowly ahead, rebounding from the tape fallout with a strong showing in the second debate.
These polls are contradicted by reams of others showing Clinton ahead, in some cases by a comfortable margin. Nevertheless, assumptions about what the electorate will look like are important.
The Los Angeles Times published an analysis asking, “Why is Trump still winning our poll?” at a time when he was falling behind in many others. Their answer, in brief, was white men and uncertain voters.
Polls that assumed turnout among Democratic voting blocs would recede significantly from their 2008 peaks occasionally predicted a narrow Romney victory in 2012. Those predictions were wrong because the underlying assumptions about turnout proved incorrect. But they were not necessarily the work of crazed “unskewers” or poll truthers — Gallup was one reputable pollster that got it wrong.
Sometimes even minor fluctuations can make a big difference. At the same time LA Times/USC showed Trump ahead, the Washington Post/ABC News poll showed Clinton with just a 4-point lead nationally. NBC News, meanwhile, has her up by double digits.
Trump could paradoxically benefit from many voting blocs — younger voters, minorities, college-educated whites — being demoralized, either staying home or voting third party, while his white working-class supporters turn out in big numbers.
“Low turnout likely benefits Trump,” said Southern Methodist University communications professor Stephanie Martin after the second debate. “Hillary depends on the Obama coalition to win, so voter enthusiasm matters more for her. The poll tightening of several weeks ago was more about lost enthusiasm on the Clinton side than it was gains for Trump.”
At the same time, LA Times/USC concluded that one of the reasons they are one of Trump’s best polls is how they account for respondents who say they are uncertain to vote. “Trump’s overall lead in the poll now depends on support from people who say they are less than 100% sure to vote,” wrote the newspaper’s David Lauter.
Yet Obama and other Democrats keep pressing the case that the unpleasantness of the 2016 campaign should motivate voters to turn out against Trump. That it may have the opposite effect remains a glimmer of hope for the brash businessman who once promised to bring many new voters into the Republican Party.
