Plan to shatter

Democrats draw plan to shatter the GOP

Through a combination of messaging and the ascendance of Donald Trump, Democrats see a path to cutting into the GOP coalition.

By Kyle Cheney

Democrats are drawing blueprints for stealing GOP moderates from a rightward-driving Republican Party, saying the heist is key to scoring a White House win in November.

Democracy Corps’ Stan Greenberg, a prominent national Democratic pollster, released data Monday morning that suggest moderate Republicans — nearly a third of the GOP base — are being ignored by their presidential candidates. These Republicans don’t revile Planned Parenthood — in fact, many prefer the women’s health group to pro-life groups and candidates who take hard-line stances on abortion. They’re supportive of same-sex marriage. They’re not enamored of the NRA. They have less rigid attitudes about sex. They accept climate science.

“It’s mind-boggling,” Greenberg said. “They’re considered illegitimate within the Republican Party, and no one is speaking to them."

It’s a dynamic Greenberg said could drive those moderates toward Democrats this fall, and he wants his party to work to make that happen.

But while the GOP moderates may feel a break from their party, they're also hostile to Democrats, meaning that bringing them over would require a total rebranding of the Democratic Party in their eyes. In an online poll of 800 likely Republican primary voters, conducted from Feb. 11 to Feb. 16, Democracy Corp found that anti-Democrat attitudes are the most potent driver of Republican primary voters — and their antipathy for Hillary Clinton outweighs even their dislike for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as a whole, a feeling that cuts across ideology.

Still, the poll shows that GOP moderates may be pliable — and that Democratic efforts to corral GOP votes shouldn’t end with just looking for moderates. The results show that Catholic Republicans are similarly out of step with the Republican base. They’re less hostile to government regulation and generally agree that those making more than $250,000 a year should pay “a lot” more in taxes.

These tactics could be even more potent if Donald Trump is the nominee. The winning arguments, Greenberg says his research shows, include convincing these Republicans that Trump is an egomaniac, that he’s disrespectful to women, that he can’t be trusted with the nation’s nuclear arsenal, that he has no clean energy agenda and that he’s hostile to global trade.

The poll shows that Trump, more than his leading rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, would cause Republicans to rethink their party loyalty. About one in five say they would either not vote or are unsure whom they’d support — or even consider supporting a third-party candidate — if Trump is the nominee. Among Catholics and moderates, these figures jump even further.

Events even since the poll was conducted have highlighted this opening. Establishment Republicans have been in open conflict with Trump over his recent equivocation when asked to condemn the Ku Klux Klan. Stories have emerged describing Republican insiders' (so far fruitless) attempts to dislodge Trump's hold on the party. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse even suggested on social media that he'd look for a third-party conservative if the general election is Trump versus Clinton.

But Greenberg's research suggests moderate and Catholic Republicans might also cross party lines for other GOP nominees, reflecting discomfort with the party's rightward lurch. These same Republicans express sharp reservations about Rubio’s position on abortion, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. In fact, after presenting poll respondents with Democratic arguments against all three leading candidates, more peel away from Rubio and Cruz than from Trump — and the most potent arguments centered on their hostility to same-sex marriage and abortion.

In addition, the Republican moderates and Catholics polled responded to some affirmative Democratic arguments — from moving past divisive social issues to encouraging infrastructure investment and cracking down on corporate greed.

The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

While Democrats plot to take advantage of the GOP's internal tensions, Republicans are looking to do much the same, hoping that they can increasingly bring blue-collar, more conservative Democrats into their coalition by painting the party as lurching left and leaving traditional values behind.