The Times reports today that Trump “seems to be taking a page from the Sanders playbook” by running as the anti-Wall Street candidate who is against reckless foreign military interventions. Combine that with his opposition to free trade, his supposed willingness to raise the minimum wage and taxes on the wealthy, and his defense of entitlements, and you theoretically have a Republican candidate who could challenge Clinton from the left in Democratic strongholds in the industrial upper Midwest.
But Trump has yet to prove he can actually appeal to voters outside the Republican Party, according to an analysis of primary voter data in Politico:
While Trump’s insurgent candidacy has spurred record-setting Republican primary turnout in state after state, the early statistics show that the vast majority of those voters aren’t actually new to voting or to the Republican Party, but rather they are reliable past voters in general elections. They are only casting ballots in a Republican primary for the first time.
This will surely come as unwelcome news to the Republican Party, which seems totally adrift from its own base. But for the Clinton camp it’s evidence that Trump’s appeal is limited—so far anyway.