Donald Trump's political philosophy is a definite failure

Earlier this month, I wrote this post to highlight Donald Trump's supposed ace-in-the-hole. I wrote "Trump's strategy has been to hold his base together. He's been successful at that. Gov. DeSantis' strategy has been to grow the Florida GOP. Gov. DeSantis hasn't just been successful at expanding the Florida GOP. He's been wildly successful at it. First, Florida's population has exploded compared with other states."

Trump might be in bigger trouble than the polls suggest if Kyle Peterson's WSJ article produces. AFP, aka Americans for Prosperity, has a plan. Peterson writes "To quote an ad from AFP Action, an associated super PAC: 'If we nominate Trump, Republicans lose.' Canvassers are knocking on the doors of 'soft' Trump voters, and according to a polling memo posted by AFP, '41% of Trump supporters say they are open to supporting an alternative.'"

I've been talking quietly with friends about how DeSantis doesn't need to go full-frontal-attack with Trump to win. He has to stand up to Trump but Trump has a major weakness. They're called the suburbs. Trump hasn't done well there since 2016. Since then, Democrats have clobbered the GOP in the suburbs. Peterson agrees with me, probaby without knowing it:

One way to win an election is to whack the other guy and steal his followers, and political candidates typically do plenty of that. But another approach is to change the electorate by inviting more voters into the pool.

Trump's appeal is to blue-collar voters. Gov. DeSantis' appeal is to pretty much every demographic group. While he didn't help start Moms for Liberty, he's certainly been a true supporter of 'Moms'. That alone is a quick ticket into the suburbs from coast-to-coast and border-to-border. Another appeal DeSantis has is with Hispanics. Last November, Gov. DeSantis won the Hispanic vote. He wasn't just competitive, which would've been enough to push him over the top. Gov. DeSantis won the Hispanic vote with nearly 60% of their vote.

If Gov. DeSantis can pick off 20%-25% of Trump's soft voters in battleground states, he'll give Trump fits, if not outright defeat him. Check this out:

"These are not apathetic people," says Michael Palmer, president of i360, a data group working with AFP. "They have voted. They just don't vote in these types of primaries." Maybe what they need is a nudge or two or six. "We're going to bug them to go and turn out," Mr. Palmer says. "We're going to knock on their door a bunch of times. We’re going to send them mail. They’re going to get sick of their Facebook feed until they go and return that absentee ballot."

Trump used to have a pretty good data analysis operation but that's history. Then again, there are parts of Trump's campaign operations that aren't top shelf. The candidate himself once spoke with the people. That disappeared years ago. The current version of Trump insists that he's a victim who had the election stolen from him.

Today was supposed to be the day that Trump was supposed to give us his rock-solid, no-room-for-doubt report that'd show tons of election fraud. Today came and went. Trump's report is as hard to find as Robert Hur, the guy who was picked to be Special Counsel investigating Biden's confidential documents that weren't properly stored. Trump's report will likely next be seen on a milk carton alongside Hur.