The Washington Free Beacon's Lachlan Markay was interviewed by Fox Business host Neil Cavuto on Donald Trump's potential to surprise Democrats this fall should he become the Republican presidential nominee.
Trump, the current leader in delegates in the GOP race, has drawn out independents and others who haven't voted Republican in the past. Markay said potential Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's comments promising to kill coal jobs was indicative of that party's move away from white, working-class voters as a key constituency, which could play to Trump's advantage.
"We've seen Democrats increasingly focus on what they call the rising American electorate, and that is young people, single women and minorities, which may be able to build a strong coalition, but you're leaving a voting bloc that's turning out to very potent and very large completely out of the equation," Markay said. "Trump, obviously, has appealed to those voters in very large numbers ... So if those people decide to cross over ... that could pose a serious problem for Clinton."
Cavuto said he was reminded to a certain extent of 1980, when many Democrats looked at polls and hoped that Ronald Reagan would be the Republican nominee to face incumbent Jimmy Carter, assuming they would win in a landslide. However, it was Reagan who won in an electoral rout, and he went on to be re-elected by an even wider margin in 1984.
Cavuto wondered whether Democrats were getting too cocky again.
"The question for Trump is going to be can he court enough of that white working-class vote to offset what a lot of people expect are going to be big losses among racial minorities, among women, and other key voting blocs, so that remains to be seen," Markay said. "Certainly, Trump is turning out a lot more people than anyone expected to turn out in these primary contests, so it's possible, but it's still going to be an uphill climb for him."