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Talking with Politico’s chief White House correspondent Mike Allen, one of the most influential journalists in Washington, MMA members wanted to know: Could Donald Trump actually win the presidency?
Given his personal brand, Trump may have already won, Allen told local officials at the MMA Annual Meeting on Jan. 23 in Boston, as he took questions and gave his thoughts on the state of Washington and the election.
“I call him the dog that caught the car,” Allen said to laughter.
Allen noted, however, that Trump’s success in the polls so far is predicated in large part on his celebrity. That said, the Trump campaign has a sophisticated data program, has invested in data mining in key states, and signed a data-sharing agreement with the Republican National Committee – assets that have not yet been fully engaged.
Regarding the value of polling of today’s campaigns, Allen related a lesson he learned in 2004, when President George W. Bush faced then-Sen. John Kerry. The candidates were statistically tied in every poll, but Bush was also slightly ahead in every poll.
“Any given poll can be wrong,” Allen said, “but every poll isn’t wrong.”
In other words, it’s telling if all the major polls are lining up with a particular candidate, even if his or her lead is small.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to keep the White House under Democrat control for the third straight term, a feat last accomplished by Presidents Ronald Regan and George H.W. Bush – and something that Allen called very difficult to pull off.
“This is still a 50-50ish nation. A little redder in the Bush years, a little bluer now, but basically 50-50,” he said. “It’s hard to run for election to essentially a third term.”
He said Clinton would have had trouble distancing herself from the Obama administration that she served in, but as Sen. [Bernie] Sanders “has become more of a threat to her, she’s been hugging [President Barack Obama] even tighter.”
Still, Allen said Republicans are in a “demographic and data hole” compared to Democrats and haven’t made progress on that front after Mitt Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012.
Obama still has a year left in his office and would like to come up with one more big achievement, Allen said, after years of having an unproductive relationship with Congressional Republicans. Where that has changed, he said, is with new House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“Paul Ryan is someone that the president respects intellectually,” Allen said. “I can imagine President Obama wanting to do one more big thing with Paul Ryan – perhaps having to do with tax reform, perhaps something modest on the budget side, and keep himself in the news. … Paul Ryan would also like to do that.”
Ryan has been “almost assuming a Hillary Clinton presidency,” Allen said, and has been building up his communication shop and policy shop “almost like a think tank within the Capitol” to serve as the voice of Republican opposition.