Kellyanne Conway: Donald Trump is rising from the ashes. Here's why Trump 2016 is Trump 2024
Fox News contributor Kellyanne Conway dissects where things stand just days away from Election Day on Fox Nation’s ‘Here’s the Deal.’
Here's the deal for this week, the very last and final push to Election Day. Ladies and gentlemen, it does feel like 2016 all over again, and for many different reasons. We're talking about Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the three states that Donald Trump won by a total of 77,000 votes to become the 45th President of the United States.
He's up against a female opponent who excited and enthused so many women across the country, and other folks. A woman, again, who was supposed to bring along brand-new constituencies into the Democratic Party and expand the electoral map, turn red states blue, increase their take among core constituencies that had been Republican for a very long time. And Donald Trump again, is being outspent. He's facing a hostile, downright dangerous mainstream media in the type of language they use to describe him and his supporters.
It all sounds familiar, but what else sounds familiar is the scent of victory for Donald J. Trump. I think Trump 2016 is Trump 2024. The hunger, the swagger, the underdog, underestimated Donald Trump, who no one thinks could make it again. And there he is, rising from the ashes. This time, literally. He was told in 2015 and 2016, you're not electable, you can't win. He was told that facing 17 qualified men and women for the Republican primary nomination. And he's been told it every single day, every single moment since he left office in January of 2021.
He faced primary opponents in 2023 and 2024. They had debates, two, hosted by FOX Business and Fox News Channel. They had an opportunity to connect with the voters in Iowa, in New Hampshire and South Carolina in these early and swing states. Many of them had outsized money, outsized attention, outsized chances given to them just to stop Donald Trump from ever seeing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again.
And yet, here he is as the nominee, surging in the polls with, yes, more money than he had the first few times, but so much more momentum and a true opportunity to continue and complete the political realignment of core constituencies that have traditionally and typically voted Democratic. What a turn of events.
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Donald Trump is poised to gain support among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, young Americans, Jewish Americans and union households. He doesn't need to win anywhere near 50%, not even 40%, nowhere near that in any of those groups to be the next President of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, politics is not about biology. It's not even about chemistry. It's about math and science. You need more electoral votes than the other person. And in the down-ballot races for House and Senate, you need one more vote than the other person.
Of course, Kamala Harris can still win, but the race has been slipping away from her for all of October, I can argue from her one debate on September 10th. It was a pretty good 90 minutes for her, but it actually has been a long-term risk and probably a liability for her. Why? Because what we saw on the stage that night in that debate we've never seen since.
There has never been another 90 minutes of Kamala Harris holding forth on policy, looking somewhat optimistic, prevaricating, of course, and equivocating, but at the same time performing in a way that made people in the Democratic Party say, see, this is why we got rid of Joe Biden and replaced him with Kamala Harris. That may have been a mistake.
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Kamala Harris is underperforming Joe Biden's vote totals in many different categories and in a number of these swing states.
Goodness. Remember? What did they say at the time? "Joe Biden must go" after that disastrous debate against Donald Trump. Biden lost that debate, but Trump won that debate, don't forget. And after the June 27 debate, what did the Democratic donors and candidates and officeholders and pundits and the mainstream media, other Democrats, what did they all say? We must get rid of Joe Biden because he's going to turn over the White House to Donald Trump, and he's going to take the House and the Senate with him. Fascinating, wasn't it?
Sounded reasonable at the time to unreasonable people. But the opposite could happen. There could be a red sweep. As I told you last week, Donald Trump is on track for a narrow landslide. Eight thousand here, 12,000 extra there, 22,000 over there. And he can run the tables on Election Day. He can easily win five of those swing states, up to 6 or 7. And there are reasons for that which we're going to dig into in this wonderful episode with Martha MacCallum. But also I'm going to continue to tell you over the next couple of minutes it feels like 2016 all over again for another reason. You. The forgotten man. The forgotten woman. The forgotten child.
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People now feel invisible to a system that is making them pay too much money for too little in return, that makes a white-knuckle to pay the monthly bills every week. We're not trying to afford luxuries. We're trying to afford everyday consumables. We want a secure border where people aren't coming here illegally. Tens, millions and millions, up to 10 million of them. We don't want new wars abroad. All the predictions about Donald Trump becoming the 45th president. They're trying all over again. He's a fascist. He's a Nazi. He loves Hitler. He is Hitler. They're insulting him because they're insulting you who support him. Don't let that happen.
You know who you are. No political person, no candidate, no party ever made a plan for you. God did have faith in that plan. Get to the polls if you haven't already. Maybe you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who have already voted. Maybe you're someone who's still going to vote, but I'm encouraging you to vote because the most equalizing factor in our democracy. One person, one vote. Your vote is your voice. Your vote is your choice. We're going to have World War III. The stock market's going to crash. All these predictions about Trump, inflation, new wars everywhere. None of it was true.
They're making those predictions again. And once again, they're trying to denigrate and castigate you, his voters. He's right. He's just in the way. They're not just going after him. They're going after you. Kamala Harris is a sign of the times. Donald Trump is a metaphor for America. When you're knocked down, when someone wishes to do you harm and pulls the trigger literally or figuratively, do you fall down and stay there or do you get back up? America, do you pump your fists in the air and say, "Fight, fight, fight"? That's the question we all have in our mind.
Let's talk about the polls and the RealClearPolitics average.
Trump has a 0.1% lead in the popular vote. But at this point, that small, small, minuscule lead is a huge one. Why? Biden was at 7.4% and Hillary Clinton was at 4.6%. It is astonishing that the popular vote is even in play. It has been consistently out of reach of Republicans since 2004. It is mostly in play because of Trump. He's improving his margins in Republican-leaning states like Texas and Florida. Compared to the previous two elections when he was the nominee, and he also appears to be cutting his deficits in blue states like California, New York and even places like New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia. The Electoral College, we know that it's not the popular vote. It's the Electoral College – how you do or don't become the president.
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Right now, the RealClearPolitics average shows everything turning up Trump literally, albeit marginally. The two best states for Trump right now in the RCP average is Arizona, which Fox News Power Rankings just moved to lean Republican, and Georgia, where Trump leads Harris by 2% on average. In the early vote in Arizona, Republicans have a 100,000 vote advantage over the Democrats. That eliminates the Democrats early vote advantage that they've been able to claim in the past two election cycles.
In Nevada, a similar trend is unfolding. Forty thousand more Republicans have voted earlier than Democrats. That is something that Nevada has never seen in the modern era. And in North Carolina, where Republicans have reduced the Democratic advantage in new registrations, Republicans are also outvoting Democrats. In 2020, Democrats outvoted Republicans by 300,000 votes at this point in the race. And now Republicans are outvoting Democrats. Boy, Donald Trump telling people, make a plan to vote. Vote on Election Day, if you like, but vote early if you feel comfortable. Vote early through the mail. Vote early through the drop box. Vote early at the polls. That's paying off.
The Lion Board and the rest of the kingdom are following with the Trump team feeling confident in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. They still would need to pick off one of those three states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to get it over to 70 Electoral College. So right now, that blue wall, there's three states – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – that Trump won in 2016 and Biden reclaimed in 2020 that are seeing the tightest polling in the cycle. They're very white states. You would have thought Kamala Harris would make a play, do much better in the racially diverse states like Georgia, Arizona, Nevada. She is not. She stuck without "Scranton Joe" going to Scranton.
She stuck without the Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan wanting to campaign much with her there bear hugging Donald Trump, saying, I don't own the electric vehicle. The million people to judge demand that you buy. I've been voting with Trump on trade. I'm bipartisan. I really am. So she's there by herself in her billions to make the case. Trump leads each of those states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, by half a percentage point. It's worth noting that at this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton led all three states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan – by more than 5% and went on to lose all three. Now, as I said, and we know, Trump still needs to pick off at least one of those so-called blue wall seats to win.
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Right now, he's trying to squeeze Harris from the left and the right, and it's working. He's improving and maintaining his margins in the rural counties, and he's making gains in urban counties like Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee, largely because of his gains among minority voters especially, but not exclusively male voters. Donald Trump doesn't need to get anywhere near 50, 40, 30% in those urban areas to actually win the state.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is bleeding support from traditional core Democratic constituencies like Blacks, Hispanics, union households, Jewish Americans and even Catholic voters. In Michigan, that includes Arab American voters, 100,000 of whom refused to vote for her and Biden in the primaries. Therefore, Harris is banking on one big route to 270. She needs to overperform with White college graduates in suburban counties. There is some evidence that she is able to do that and hold on to these blue wall states. CNN, for example, recently analyzed the polling averages and shows Harris doubling Joe Biden's margin in 2020 among white college grads. That's a little scary. And that will be the telltale sign on election night.
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How is the race looking in suburban counties, big counties surrounding big urban counties like Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee? Let's take a look at the House and Senate, because, after all, President Trump will need a red sweep. To be able to get things done and to avoid impeachment in the first couple of days by 30 Democratic led House and Senate, if every single lean, likely and safe seat went each party's way, the Republicans would start at 207 and the Democrats would start at 203, according to Cook Political Report.
That leaves control of the House to be decided by 25 toss-up seats, 14 currently held by q Republican, 11 currently held by a Democrat. Of the 14 seats Republicans are defending, only four districts were won by Trump in 2020. California 41. Iowa one. Iowa three. Pennsylvania 10. Biden won ten of these seats, including seven of the seats by over 5%. California 13. California 22. California 27. California 45. New Nebraska two. New York four. Oregon five. Why do I say this? Remember where Trump's been recently? Coachella, California. Long Island. New York. Madison Square Garden.
Why is he going to non-swing states, Kellyanne? Because he's smart and he knows that the House majority that the Republicans got in 2022 ran through California in New York, of the 10 seats Democrats are defending in the House, four were won by Trump.
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Biden won seven of them and only three where he had comfortable wins. As goes the race nationally for president may go the race for Republicans. Ladies and gentlemen, we've had three consecutive election cycles, 2018, 2020 and 2022, where we did not know who controlled the House of Representatives until December. That could happen again.
Or we can have an early night. Quickly look at the US Senate – best electoral map for the GOP in a decade and probably for the next decade. Excellent candidates having been recruited in most, if not all, of these places.
West Virginia, open seat, the Manchin seat safe. Republican Jim Justice will be the next United States senator from West Virginia. Montana, currently rated as likely Republican, where former Navy SEAL and successful financial executive Tim Sheehy is taking the case to Jon Tester and beating him in all the respectable polls. Ohio, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan are currently rated as toss-ups for United States Senate.
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So we're feeling really bullish about the House and Senate as well. Again, no red wave, but a red sweep helps President Trump legislatively accomplish more of that agenda.
This article is adapted from Kellyanne Conway's opening commentary from the latest edition of "Here's the Deal with Kellyanne," streaming on Fox Nation.
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