Washington Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti discussed Donald Trump’s tepid overall enthusiasm among Republicans Friday on Meet the Press Daily Friday with Chuck Todd.
The panel discussed whether or not the presumptive Republican nominee could keep his anti-establishment voters while gaining the endorsement of GOP political figures.
Continetti explained how the Democratic Party will likely eventually unite at the end of the primaries, but Republicans don't seem to have that luxury.
"A tepid endorsement is a sign of tepid enthusiasm among Republicans at large. Trump is at the head of a divided party and right now Hillary's in the middle of her primary," he said. "Once that ends, you're going to have a very unified Democratic Party unless Bernie [Sanders] decides to go rogue.
"But we've already seen Trump in some of these polls under-performing Mitt Romney in terms of the white vote, which is the base of the Republican Party. Parties have faced this before, ’64, '72. You have a nominee who is outside the bounds of what the establishment represents and you have tepid endorsements like we’ve seen from Ryan and McConnell. They're not going to step up and defend Trump when push comes to shove."
Continetti highlighted this worry in an article on Friday, writing,
"What’s interesting about 2016 is that neither party has a good candidate. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are disliked and distrusted—more so than any other nominees in history.
Trump supporters point to Clinton’s unpopularity as reason to think he can win. But they forget that, as unpopular as Clinton is, she is still more popular than Trump. They forget that, when neither candidate is stellar, an election reverts to the fundamentals. Which help the Democrats."