Two weeks ago, I wrote a post titled, Don’t Count Out Donald Trump Yet. Let’s take a moment to revisit a few of my observations:
Trump experienced a horrible period from mid-May to mid-June, which culminated in the dismissal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Based on my Twitter feed, Trump is finished. I’ve been incessantly bombarded with articles highlighting an ever widening lead for Hillary Clinton nationally in the polls. So is Trump finished? Not by a long shot.
First off, let’s discuss the macro environment. As the Brexit vote demonstrated in spades, people are not in a cheery mood and appear willing to suffer negative consequences in the short-term in order to blow up the status quo. This is hugely important and a huge part of the Trump phenomenon. I also think the arrogant, dismissive, undemocratic and paternalistic attitude of so-called “elites” in the aftermath of Brexit will not be lost on U.S. voters.
Equally interesting, is how incredibly close the race between Clinton and Trump is in a wide variety of swing states, as well as states that typically lean one way or the other. The reason this is happening is we essentially have a race between a nativist populist versus a Wall Street neocon for the first time in recent memory. As such, anyone claiming they know how this will play out is full of…