I‘m making a practice of asking Donald Trump supporters and others at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland what percentage of the popular vote they think Trump will get in November.
Conservative pundit and Reagan White House veteran Jeffrey Lord predicts 50 percent, enough to win given that third and fourth candidates will get a few percent. Will Trump carry Lord’s home state of Pennsylvania? Answer: a resounding yes.
Corey Lewandowski, the spectrally thin former Trump campaign manager, predicts 47 percent, enough to easily win since he thinks Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will get their percentages. As much as Bill Clinton, he says; when reminded that Clinton got only 43 percent in 1992, he notes correctly that Ross Perot got 18 or 19 percent (it was 19). As for Pennsylvania, he thinks Trump will easily win it, even though no Republican presidential nominee has since 1988, but says that if Hillary Clinton picks Virginia senator and former governor Tim Kaine as her vice presidential nominee then Trump will lose Virginia. A good trade, he thinks: Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes, Virginia 13.
