After Trump's win and the supposed lack of a ground game what do you think about the need to have a big ground game to win a presidential election?
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Political Ground Game
- Thread starter Revmitchell
- Start date
Well, IMO he needs to do something, anything to assure folks that he not just another "good ole guy", he won, now what? Sit back and bask in the glory?
The whole world is watching - literally.
HankD
What I meant is that in order to get elected it is believed that there needs to be a serious "ground game' meaning the feet on the ground reaching people to convince them to vote for you. It is believed by many that without it you cannot get elected and it is believed that who ever has the better ground game will likely win.
The unknown is how many voted for Trump because they thought him the best man for the job and how many voted for him because they thought he was their only option. We probably have to also recognize the change in terms of social media and the internet. In many ways, presence online trumps feet on the ground.
I think the new ground game is social media. In the previous two presidential elections, McCain and Romney didn't have much of an online presence, as least as far as what I saw in my feeds and whatnot, but this time around, the democrats were up against the master of social media, and I truly believe that was one of the key factors in President-elect Trump's victory.
There's probably some truth here, BUT Trump's advisers took away his Tweeting privileges a couple days before Election Day and I suspect that the white rural older voters that put Trump over the top are not big social media fans.
His advisers did him a favor in taking away his tweeting privileges, but I really don't think that it was the white rural older votes that put Trump over the top.
I say this because of what I see in my area (which may or may not speak to the nation as a whole). I am an operations manager for a small locally owned company. I work with many businesses in the service and construction market. Many of them are suffering under the current administration and the outlook looked very dim under Clinton. Whether or not the fear was warranted, Trump carried a lot of votes from the small business sector, the majority of which are middle aged, mixed race, and not the wealthiest bunch out there. These are blue collar, working class, businessmen and women who did not believe their companies would survive another 4 years of the DNC.
That said, I also noticed many old white Democrats who supported President Obama but came to see the Democrat Party move even more liberal with the support of SSM and that agenda as a whole. I always criticized those who professed to be Christian but remained Democrat because of their stance on abortion, but this fell on deaf ears. For one reason or another, the gender blur caught their attention as an attack on their faith where the abortion issue did not. Many here (many related to me by marriage) were hard core Democrat until this election. Those folks don't tweet....but they do facebook
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There was a map of counties that Trump won that Obama had carried the previous two elections. They were almost all of them in rural areas. It was eye opening. I wish I could find it. Here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ts/map-the-obama-voters-who-helped-trump-win/
As to the ground game, Hillary Clinton did not visit Wisconsin very often, and certainly not in the past couple of months, IIRC. I don't know how many resources she put in there, I guess she took it for granted. Here's some Democratic vote totals from 2012 and 2016
Milwaukee County:
2012 Obama, 332,438
2016 Clinton, 288,984
-43,452 difference or 13.1% less.
Trump won Wisconsin by 27,359 votes
Wisconsin (statewide)
2004 Kerry, 1,489,504
2012 Obama, 1,620,985
2016 Clinton, 1,380,512
Milwaukee County:
2012 Obama, 332,438
2016 Clinton, 288,984
-43,452 difference or 13.1% less.
Trump won Wisconsin by 27,359 votes
Wisconsin (statewide)
2004 Kerry, 1,489,504
2012 Obama, 1,620,985
2016 Clinton, 1,380,512
It's really hard to say because Trump isn't your typical candidate. I feel that no data is useful at this point.
That was a very interesting map. Thanks for the link.