Is Donald Trump now applying the GOP's "Texas Strategy" to the Midwest? (Vanity!)

In what is becoming an even stranger election season by the day, Donald Trump is now showing strong leads in states that Republicans have been losing in recently. Specifically he's showing leads of 10 to 20 points in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, states that had been left for dead by GOP leaders. Even Pennsylvania and Virginia, two former GOP states that the party has been struggling in recently, show 10 point edges for Mr. Trump. But most surprisingly, a state that was considered long-gone, New Jersey, shows Trump with a small lead, although it's still within the margin of error. No one in the political world expected to see the Democrat Party having to spend a dime in New Jersey these days, but now the state is a toss-up, at best, for Mr. Biden.

Back in August of last year, Trump visited Michigan and it occurred to him and his staff that Michigan could be won again for the GOP, if the right strategy were applied. Publically, the campaign strategy is to simply appeal to the concerns that the majority of voters have, which are jobs first, border security second, while staying out of trouble on other issues, like abortion and gun control (Michigan has a very active gun lobby and hunting tradition, for example). For jobs, Mr. Trump's obvious appeal is to make sure that trade agreements work in favor of the United States, rather than serving as a clandestine form of foreign aid, designed to industrialize other countries, at the expense of the United States. A lower key part of his campaign, but probably the most important, is his plan to use all of the powers of the Oval Office, and taking a cue from the outgoing president, some powers that he doesn't have, to rid the country of the regulations that strangle industry in the United States. As Mr. Trump has often stated, we can have clean water and clean air, and still have factories safe to work in - but it must be done in cost-effective manner, so if keeping a large factory in the United States means one (hypothetical) additional cancer case per hundred thousand people living downwind, or raising ocean levels by a nanometer or two, perhaps that is a reasonable price to pay for a plant that employs two thousand workers.

But privately, our sources have told us that a big part of their strategy, one which they vehemently denied when asked, is to appeal to white Americans (Michigan is nearly 80% white), as the Democrat Party has drifted so far left on issues like gun control and gay marriage, that this vote is now available for the taking. The strategy of targeting the white vote had been considered almost a decade ago by the GOP leadership but a combination of factors led to its rejection. Back then, the GOP was contending with a black candidate, Barak Obama, so the charge of racism could amount from the tiniest infraction. Furthermore, the GOP was coming off of a well-funded and well-coordinated attempt to secure the Hispanic vote, by promising amnesty to tens of millions of people in the United States illegally. In fact, the GOP had gone even further, by hiring an expert on Hispanic affairs, who was more than qualified for the job by having taken Spanish for 2 years in high school. Furthermore, the Hispanic population was growing very fast, and had already exceeded the black population. Although Hispanics do not vote in percentages as high as whites (or blacks), they will eventually become the Number 2 voting block, exceeding the black vote. So the strategy was set by the GOP bosses for 2016, simply put: there would be no discussion of immigration (illegal or otherwise) in that Primary campaign, as it only turns off Hispanic voters, according to their focus groups. If the Republican Party is to be around in 30 years, it will only be possible if they earn the votes of millions of Hispanics. Prior to the start of the 2016 campaign season, all Republicans were asked to agree with this strategy, and all did agree (this is true, by the way) - but Mr. Trump, not being a candidate at the time was not asked, and very likely would not have agreed to any conditions on his candidacy.

But instead Trump and his team looked at the short term. They saw a country that was quickly 'transforming' itself from a top-tier, first world, country, to a has-been, third world, country, like Argentina. And while being a strong party in 30 years may well be a laudable goal, losing election after election trying to pander to Hispanics (while the base sits at home, not voting) may not be such a good short term strategy. The Trump campaign looked at perhaps the most ignored national election in US history, the 2014 election, and they found one thing that GOP leaders had somehow 'missed', which was that the Hispanic vote, unlike the black vote, is not monolithic, not by a long shot. Yes, it is more Democrat than the white vote, but if a Republican can do well with white voters, then all that is necessary with Hispanics is to split their vote 50-50 with the Democrats, or at least come close. And this is precisely what happened in Texas, and other southern states, in 2014. People may forget, but 2014 was supposed to be the year that Texas turned purple, with Wendy Davis at the top of the ticket, leading the charge, and being helped by the non-Hispanic white population being down to 45% statewide. As it was, that did not happen. Rather the Republicans won every statewide race by about 20 points, in other words, by a landslide. The Democrats never had a chance. The Republicans won these landslides because of two things: First, they put their natural base, the white voters, first in line - which means they addressed the concerns that the white voters have, with secure borders and immigration being the top concerns in Texas. This resulted in Republicans winning 75 to 80 percent of the white vote, which was almost enough on its own to secure statewide victory. But second, by using this strategy, the Republicans also appealed to conservative Hispanics, and wound up with between 40 and 45 percent of the Hispanic vote - the existence of these conservative Hispanic voters, for some reason, never seemed to show up in 'focus groups' arranged by Republican pollsters, which is why Republican advisers are convinced they don't exist (perhaps they only do their focus groups in California or New York, where Hispanics vote much more Democrat). It seems that many Hispanics also are not too hot on open borders, gay marriage, gun control, or even high taxes. Black voters were considered out of reach and although Republican values address many of the concerns of black voters, the Republicans were not going to compromise any of their core values to try to pluck off what would amount to only a few of them - that strategy has been tried over and over in the past, and proven to fail every time.

So in the end, Mr. Trump's team simply could not see a reason why this strategy could not be expanded to a lot more states that have either been voting Democrat in recent elections, or trending that way, and they have been applying this strategy - take care of the concerns of the base voters first, then reach out to non-traditional GOP voters (no different than Reagan in 1980). And considering that Mr. Trump is now looking at the possibility of securing over 350 Electoral Votes (270 needed to win), even top GOP leaders would have to admit (privately), that his strategy was brilliant.

Follow-up: We later asked GOP leaders why they didn’t consider Mr. Trump’s strategy and they told us, off the record of course, that they had quietly discussed the strategy with their major donors, and to a person they stated that labor costs were their biggest concern and anything that may put at risk the constant supply of low-cost labor was a non-starter for them.

I hear you, it does come across with a mild racial undertone, but then trying to dance around it winds up with our side getting defeated, or nearly defeated, as in every presidential election since 1988 (just barely winning 2000 and 2004). I could have put in third person with words such as “it appears”...oh well.

But the key is not what I think, because who am I? The key is whether the Republicans have ENOUGH BRAINS to try to meet the needs of their base voters, and are capable of doing so even with the media calling them racist the entire way through - as will be played against Trump, and probably very soon (heck, we’re already called xenophobic for wanting border security).

I would simply like the see the GOP actually try to win, rather than tiptoe around ‘divisive issues’, as defined by the media.

I would too—I’d just leave the “Southern Strategy” term alone.

Again, you’re doing him a disservice—even with just the headline here on FR.

Trump hasn’t called it such but the media does play with words.

Cruz and the SEC strategy......

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=cruz+sec+strategy

Thanks. You’re history is better than mine...I was thinking of the present, where the GOP has a lock on the south by running conservatives that campaign and (usually) govern as conservatives...rather than listening to their up-north ‘advisers’. But I see the racist connotation in the history of that term from the past, after looking it up.

Admin,

At the request of Lurker and myself, might you change the title of this posting from “Southern Strategy” to “Texas Strategy”, as I didn’t realize that the term “Southern Strategy” was so racially loaded.

Thanks, Bobl.

I’d take issue with the GOP Hispanic strategy having much potential either in the near term or the longer term.

But how about referring to Trump addressing the “Silent Majority”, as he revives another old phrase?

Oh, sorry—just logged in and realized you’d already addressed it with the Admin, etc.

You make some good points in the piece.

“I’d take issue with the GOP Hispanic strategy having much potential either in the near term or the longer term.”

I think that short term we can talk border security and have common ground. Hispanics seem to agree on the need for securing the border, it’s more the GOP elite, Dem leaders and “Hispanic Activists” (i.e., Dems) that want the country to keep getting flooded. That’s why Hispanics voted as they did in the South, in 2014. No one talked deporting, at least in Texas, but they all talked about securing the border, and it did not drive Hispanics away from Republicans.

But once we have the wall and agree that we’re securing the border, the next steps will create some friction - as families will be dealing with people having to head home (under Trump’s plan at least) with no promise of being allowed back on a permanent basis.

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