‘He’ll lose it for us’: Donald Trump voters panicking
Donald Trump may appear to be cruising to victory but a tiny poster in a Republican Party office window reveals a deep concern that all is not well.
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It’s the final days of the US election campaign and the momentum would appear to be with Donald Trump.
He has clawed back some of Kamala Harris’ lead in the polls, leaving the contest essentially neck and neck.
But a small sign – no bigger than an A4 piece of paper – on a Republican Party office window in a remote corner of the US, has revealed a deep worry in the Trump campaign.
“He could lose this, he could,” one Trump supporter told news.com.au.
While an academic has said his bombastic rally this weekend in New York City may have “angered” more people that were energised.
‘Vote policy, not personality’
In Port Angeles, in the north western state of Washington, the Republican Party office is hard to miss.
Outside is painted with a giant US flag. Inside, smiling towards passers by, are life size cut outs of Donald and Melania Trump. Surrounding them are brightly coloured placards for a host of other Republicans standing in local contests on November 5.
But tacked to the window, next to the cardboard head of Mr Trump, is another poster.
Solemn, black and white, it looks like it was produced in Word and probably spat out of the office printer.
It has four simple words: “Vote policy, not personality”.
The head of the local Republican Party Pamela Blakeman told news.com.au the sign was very much about one particular politician: Mr Trump.
In a maddeningly tight election, there are real fears Mr Trump’s personality could put off enough voters that the Republicans lose the race.
‘I don’t like that man at the top’
A few days ago, Ms Blakeman said, she was handing out leaflets encouraging people to vote for Republican candidates, including Mr Trump.
“I knocked on this one guy’s door and he just kept saying ‘I don’t like that man at the top, I don’t like him’.
“He couldn’t get over his dislike for him so in the end I took out a pen and I put an ‘X’ through (Mr Trump’s) head, and I said ‘now will you take the leaflet’?
“He took it,” she said.
In news.com.au’s travels around the US, a common refrain from Republicans is that Mr Trump’s rhetoric is an issue.
From repeating lies about migrants eating pets, to spit balling about whether Ms Harris’ crowds were AI generated. From dwelling on the penis size of late golfer Arnold Palmer to calling Ms Harris a “sh*t Vice President”.
From his tolerance for dictators to comments about the “enemy within,” a phrase that evokes fears a future President Trump could clamp down on any opposition.
“If he talks about the policies – the border and the economy – he will win,” a Republican supporter told news.com.au in Chicago.
“But he has to stop talking about crowd sizes and the other stuff because he will lose.”
A delegate at July’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee – someone who should be the most MAGA of MAGAs – was even more direct to news.com.au.
“Donald Trump’s a jerk.
“But he loves his family and he loves his country,” she added
Comedian’s wild comment about swing voters
It’s not just Mr Trump. It’s the people he surrounds himself with.
The warm up acts for Mr Trump’s NYC rally could have been a broad church of Republicans. Instead it included Tucker Carlson, a far right wing pundit who cosied up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and an acquaintance of the nominee who called Ms Harris the “devil” and the “anti-Christ” while holding aloft a cross.
But most memorable was comments from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who has previously been embroiled in accusations of racism.
At the rally, he said the US territory of Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage,” among another racially charged quips. The jokes fell flat.
Almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the mainland US and a good proportion of them can vote in swing states like Pennsylvania.
The Trump campaign said Hinchcliffe’s comments did not reflect the views of the nominee.
But there have been numerous times when Mr Trump, or another speaker at one of his rallies, has made a comment that the campaign has then had to dismiss or downplay.
‘Flood the zone with crazy’
“There is some wisdom to him just flooding the zone with crazy,” Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former communications director in the Trump White House, told CNN.
“Talking about the silly Arnold Palmer story means we’re not talking about him saying he’d use the American military against US citizens”.
Also on CNN, Erin Pierre, another former Trump comms staffer, said his campaign was likely trying to devise a strategy to get key policy points across to swing voters.
“But instead, Donald Trump is going to do Donald Trump, and that’s going to be whatever thought comes out of his mind at the moment and he’s going to say it to the American people.
“But it’s baked into the polling. The American people at this point kind of shrug off all the bombasticness, because it’s a never ending outrage cycle about him.”
For other politicians, Mr Trump’s words might scupper their campaign. However, many voters appear to either zone out of his comments, brush them aside as just Trump hyperbole or weigh up that there is more to like about Mr Trump than dislike.
Republican Governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu once called Mr Trump “crazy”.
Yet last week, he said that while some of Mr Trump’s comments gave him “pause,” it was really was just “hyperbole,” and, anyway, during his term in office Mr Trump never really went after his rivals.
As a case in point, in August, a Chicago cab driver told news.com.au that he wasn’t fazed by Mr Trump’s comments and liked his other qualities.
“He tells it like it is.
“Others make money off us, he made his own money.
“Trump is seen as the US dream by many. They aspire to his riches.”
‘Fear activation’
University of Kansas professor of rhetoric and political communication Robert Rowland told news.com.au Mr Trump’s success was in “activating negative emotions” and then “presenting himself as the strongman who can protect people”.
“His fear activation has been very powerful, despite the fact that none of the groups he attacks actually threaten the nation.”
Government data shows a group Mr Trump often focuses on, undocumented migrants, have a lower crime rate that Americans born in the US.
“Trump does not shift to another playbook, because the only message he has is nationalist appeals warning about dangerous others, populist attacks on elites, and a presentation of himself as the strongman saviour for the nation.”
That was a weakness, said Prof Rowland.
“One of the notable aspects of the campaign is how many traditional Reagan Republicans have endorsed Harris.
“It isn’t that they support her domestic policies, but they fear and despise what Trump stands for.
“This creates a situation in which Trump has a very strong core of support, but not a high ceiling for appealing to swing voters.
“It is quite possible that the extremism in the New York rally, which is reflective of all his rally speeches, will anger more people than it activates.”
The Harris campaign has, in some ways, co-opted the Trump rhetoric. Vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz has called Mr Trump “dumb” and “weird”. Hillary Clinton compared Sunday’s event to a Nazi rally. Former President Barack Obama has made none-too-subtle references to Mr Trump’s manhood.
Nonetheless, in Port Angeles, Ms Blakeman was frustrated that voters were “still focused on Donald Trump’s mean tweets”.
She said his comments were just “superficial”.
“He’s toned it down so much,” she insisted to news.com.au.
“But the mainstream media and censorship paints him as this incredibly horrible person.
“I don’t see that.
“I say to (voters), ‘what about the policies, what about creating jobs for the black people, what about keeping jobs in America? You were better off four years ago. That needs to count for something, right?’”
Wouldn’t the media focus less on Mr Trump’s outbursts, if there were simply less of them?
“But the flip side is there is this strong group that wants to just let Trump be,” she said.
“And they are the ones that are very passionate and go out the vote”.
Yet, she conceded, Mr Trump’s provocative pronouncements, were “an obstacle for some people”.
At the New York rally, TV host Dr Phil pointedly said voters “didn’t have to love everything about somebody,” to support them.
It felt very much like the same message on the office window of a Republican Party office in a remote corner of the US.
Originally published as ‘He’ll lose it for us’: Donald Trump voters panicking
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