{"id":2264,"date":"2023-12-05T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T20:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2023-12-05T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T20:00:16","slug":"the-five-types-of-trump-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/the-five-types-of-trump-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Five Types of Trump Voters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Newsflash: Donald Trump will very likely win the Iowa caucuses. He\u2019s 27 percentage points ahead<\/a> of his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Trump can still lose while winning if there\u2019s a clear runner-up. It\u2019s why the former president recently implored<\/a> an Iowa rally, \u201cDon\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d For a candidate who\u2019s used to framing his campaign as an exercise in inevitability<\/a>, it was a rare, if tacit, admission of vulnerability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the talk of Trump\u2019s death grip on the GOP<\/a>, it\u2019s worth pausing to consider that in a recent Iowa poll 79 percent of Republicans said<\/a> that they\u2019d consider voting for another candidate. Most will default to Trump in the end. Still, not every Republican who prefers him will endure a freezing night in Sioux City or Fort Dodge to cast a ballot. That\u2019s especially true if they think, as they should, that a Trump win in Iowa is preordained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To emerge as the<\/em>, not a<\/em>, Trump alternative, either Nikki Haley <\/a>or DeSantis <\/a>needs to peel off some Iowa Trump voters. But that can only be done by discerning who is \u201cgettable\u201d and who\u2019s not. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Trump base isn\u2019t monolithic, nor is it impenetrable. But it does require differentiating some voters from others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are five main kinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First are the True Believers. They\u2019re who Trump means when he says he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue<\/a>, and no one would care. They don MAGA hats and keep the TV glued to Newsmax (because Fox News is too tame). True Believers buy the \u201cBig Lie\u201d not simply as a cultural construct or in thinking that big tech censored news, but in the literal sense. This is the real Trump base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second are the Reluctant Supporters. They feel no love for Trump, and many are even repulsed by his behavior and his social media posts. These include single-issue voters on policies like abortion. Many are evangelical Christians. They liked Trump\u2019s tax cuts, deregulation efforts and conservative Supreme Court appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third are the Anti-Bideners. They view Trump, instinctually, as the president\u2019s foil. They don\u2019t like Biden <\/a>because he\u2019s a Democrat. They don\u2019t like him because of inflation. They don\u2019t like him because of critical race theory, and \u201cwokeism,\u201d and everything progressive they project onto the president. Most of all, they want to beat Biden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth are the Bandwagoners. They\u2019re loyal to the Republican Party. They root for \u201cthe team,\u201d and particularly its leader. Trump is the face of the franchise, and as long as that\u2019s true, they\u2019ll support him. But they\u2019d be just as content to support any candidate with an \u201cR\u201d next to the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifth are the Need-for-Drama Republicans. They get their kicks, psychologically and motivationally, from chaos. They spread rumors and conspiracy theories. They\u2019re attracted to a \u201cblow-up-the-system\u201d brand of politics that, at its core, is fundamentally anti-conservative. Many have radicalized even beyond Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haley and DeSantis can write off the first and last groups. The Trump True Believers are just that: True Believers. The Need-for-Drama Republicans aren\u2019t a group that Trump\u2019s rivals can, or should, embrace; these current and former governors are too establishment and can\u2019t play in that lane. But they have more appeal for the other groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By dint of her electability, Haley naturally aligns with the Anti-Bideners. In a head-to-head matchup, polling shows she\u2019d beat Biden by 10 percentage points<\/a> in a national popular vote, whereas DeSantis and Trump would be running in a virtual dead-heat. The big question for Haley is whether she\u2019s willing to take serious shots at Trump when she is a potential prospect to be his running mate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis\u2019s affinity lies with the Reluctant Supporters. This means leaning full into policy, where he has a real record in Florida on Covid, immigration, education and taxes. DeSantis\u2019s biggest error has been telling voters he\u2019d have eight years ahead to enact a conservative agenda<\/a>. Voters don\u2019t want to hear eight years. They want to hear, \u201cNow.\u201d \u201cQuickly.\u201d \u201cFirst 100 days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bandwagoners are the toughest to get because they require, first, showing viability in the primaries. That won\u2019t happen until either Haley or DeSantis proves momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, it\u2019s the Trump vs. Everyone Else primaries. Trump can win without breaking a sweat if more candidates stay in the race and split the anti-Trump vote. For Trump to lose while winning, that has to change in Iowa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsflash: Donald Trump will very likely win the Iowa caucuses. He\u2019s 27 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Trump can still lose while winning if there\u2019s a clear runner-up. It\u2019s why the former president recently implored an Iowa rally, \u201cDon\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d For a candidate who\u2019s used to framing his campaign as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,73],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"category-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2266,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}