Pew chief: ‘Trump’s right’

“Trump’s right,” said Carroll Doherty.

“What Trump has said is, ‘I would have campaigned differently if the Electoral College wasn’t in place.’ He’s right. He would have,” said Doherty.

His comments came in a post-election review for the Ripon Society. The moderate Republican group provided Secrets with a video of the event.

They were made before Trump’s Twitter storm this morning, two days after he won the Electoral College vote and amid continued criticism from Democrats that he has no mandate because he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. During Monday’s Electoral voting in state capitals, several anti-Trump advocates protested that he shouldn’t have won without winning the popular vote.

“Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!” Trump tweeted.

In another, he wrote, “I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote – but would campaign differently.”

Doherty agreed. “He would have spent more time in Texas, ramping up the vote there, or in the South, or in red states. He would have campaigned completely differently.”

And, the pollster said, “Clinton would have campaigned completely differently. It would have been a different campaign altogether.”

He added: “It’s probably not going to change. So it’s the system and both parties have had to learn to adapt to it.”

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]