My theory (which matches up with this) is that Trump believes (and possibly rightly so) that 40% of the people will vote for the Democrat no matter what, and 40% will vote for the Republican no matter what.
And the other 20% don't care and will vote for whoever they “like” the best, whoever they think is the “coolest” or whoever entertains them the most.
Hillary is NOT likable.
Hillary is NOT cool.
and Hillary is BORING as hell.
If Trump is right... he will win in a landslide.
We haven’t had 65% eligible voter turnout since 1908. Most of the time since that it has been much less, and of course local and state elections and even lower.
So would be worse or better off if turnout was consistently higher? I suspect a higher turnout would only increase the swing voters as a %, the folks who vote based on things like perceived popularity of a candidate or an accidental debate flub or someone’s appearance. The really wild thing is that the 10% or so of eligible voters who are swing voters supposedly decide all elections, no matter if a con or lib or pub or dem wins, based on how they happened to be swayed that cycle.
Freegards
And it plays out in different ways.
For example, Trump says he's in favor or raising the minimum wage. Now a guy who has a large company knows that if you raise the minimum wage, a lot of people at the low end don't get to work at all.
But I think Trump is supporting a minimum wage increase because most blue collar workers consider it important and he needs their votes.
So he's a pragmatist, and I do believe he has the best interest of the country in mind, just needs to compromise on certain issues to get elected and to save the country.