Can’t seal the deal

Trump can’t seal the deal with swing-state Republican establishment

National Republicans may be on board, but he still faces intense skepticism in Ohio and Florida.

By Katie Glueck

When Donald Trump comes to Cleveland this summer to claim the Republican nomination, he’ll do it an eight-minute drive away from the George V. Voinovich Bridge. He’ll be eight minutes in the other direction from Voinovich Atrium at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and just a few minutes farther from Voinovich Bicentennial Park.

But as of now, Trump will be without the backing of George Voinovich himself, the former Ohio governor and senator —and one of the state’s favorite Republican sons — who has yet to throw his support behind the presumptive GOP nominee.

Trump’s swing-state trouble isn’t limited to Voinovich. While national Republican leaders have largely gotten on board, a host of key establishment figures in Ohio and Florida — including current Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Gov. Bob Taft, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo and other influential Latino leaders in Florida — are still refusing to get behind the GOP nominee.

“He has, over the campaign, talked about lots of things, and what he’s talked about in his solutions to these things have raised a lot of eyebrows,” said Voinovich, counting himself as one of what he described as many Ohioans who have serious concerns about Trump’s plans for everything from the debt to international alliances. “I mean, the point is, people are dismayed at some of the stuff.”

He went on to add, “He’s got a lot of work to do between now and the election to reach out, not only to Republicans, but to independents who have serious questions about whether he’s able to get the job done.”

A lack of establishment support didn’t slow Trump in the primary, as Trump got very few big-name endorsements but won handily anyway. But even if establishment figures sway only small numbers of voters, recent history demonstrates that small margins can make a big difference. When George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Ohio in 2004, the last time the state went Republican, he did it by just over 100,000 votes. And when Bush was declared Florida’s victor over Al Gore in 2000, the margin was so tight that some Democrats are still arguing over the result 16 years later.

The challenge for Trump is starkly apparent in Ohio, where insufficient Republican turnout in 2012 (and robust Democratic turnout) helped President Barack Obama romp to victory over Mitt Romney, even though Romney won independents in the state.

And it’s a dynamic that starts at the top: Ohio Gov. John Kasich has so far declined to endorse Trump, rebuking him over Twitter as recently as last week and saying that his family wouldn’t understand a quick endorsement of the real estate mogul, his former presidential rival.

“It’s a significant factor that the governor of a key swing state has not yet endorsed the presumptive nominee,” said Taft, who himself has “deep reservations” about Trump. The candidate “should view that as a problem, yes, absolutely.”

Even if Kasich does ultimately, and relatively tardily, back Trump — Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges, a vocal critic of Trump during Kasich’s campaign, has suggested that he might — institutional wariness of the candidate runs deep in Ohio, where Trump’s team didn’t talk seriously about organization with the heavily Kasich-aligned state party until last week.

After Trump essentially clinched the nomination last month, leading Ohio Republicans offered responses that ranged from quiet mutterings about supporting the nominee, to deep skepticism to outright opposition.

State Sen. Shannon Jones, for example, has said Trump’s values are at odds with those she’s trying to impart to her children. Other lawmakers, from the state auditor to other state senators, have voiced strong concerns about the New York billionaire (though the state Senate president and state House speaker struck more conciliatory tones).

“I think he faces considerable challenges in Ohio, mostly around his own changing positions and his lack of depth of knowledge of the federal government,” said former Ohio Lt. Gov. Bruce Johnson.

But Scott Jennings, who managed Romney’s Ohio operation, questioned the utility of old-guard establishment endorsements in a year in which Trump has succeeded despite intense opposition from elected officials and GOP bigwigs.

Instead, Jennings said Trump would benefit from the ability to tap the organizational structure that has already mobilized to defend incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman. And certainly, there are parts of the state, including Ohio’s coal country, where he looks to be especially strong without the help of the party establishment.

“Ultimately, having everybody rowing the boat in the same direction is more helpful than not, but even though there may be some turbulence today, I still think Trump is in a competitive position in Ohio right now,” he said.

But in a state that’s going to play host to Trump’s nominating celebration in a matter of weeks, the party is the most divided it’s been in recent memory, Johnson said.

“After a difficult primary that’s somewhat common” to lack party unity, he said. “[That] this one’s coming together more slowly than usual is probably a pretty easy observation to make.”

Polls in Ohio and Florida show neither Trump nor his likely rival, Hillary Clinton, has fully consolidated their bases in those states. According to a CBS News/YouGov poll out of Ohio from late last month, only 80 percent of Republicans would vote for Trump as of today, and 82 percent of Democrats are currently supporting Clinton.

In Florida, according to the same battleground tracker, 84 percent of Republicans are backing Trump and 83 percent of Democrats are backing Clinton, below the traditional 90 percent threshold that insiders familiar with both states say is necessary to win.

But Clinton is still facing a fairly robust primary challenge. Trump, however, has already cleared the Republican lane—yet many key players in both of those pivotal swing states are still on the sidelines.

Consider Florida. While the institutional opposition to Trump in Florida is not as clear-cut as it is in Ohio — Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi, for example, support the Manhatan mogul — he still faces plenty of opposition from bold-face Republican names despite winning every county in Florida except heavily Latino Miami-Dade.

In that populous region, Trump is still struggling. Following the lead of Jeb Bush, a host of Miami-area Republican lawmakers, including Ros-Lehtinen and Curbelo, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, have all said that they will not back Trump (but are not planning to support Clinton, either) — giving Democrats further reason to seek to run up the totals in more liberal southeastern Florida and forcing Trump to overperform in more conservative areas.

Mac Stipanovich, a longtime GOP operative and lobbyist in Florida, said Trump’s controversial comments about Latinos and women are in his view so beyond the pale that it is acceptable, this year, for longtime Republicans to abandon the nominee.

That may especially be the case for politicians who require some support from centrist and Hispanic voters, though there are limits: Other Republicans, wary of being pilloried in a primary for effectively helping Clinton, feel pressure to indicate support. But Stipanovich expects that there will still be more Republicans than usual sitting on the sidelines.

“People like me, who would normally vote for the nominee come hell or high water, if 3 to 5 percent of us don’t vote for Trump — and I suspect it might be 10 to 15 percent — when all is said and done, then he loses,” he said.

Stipanovich also noted the derisive way Trump treated Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, two “favorite sons” of Florida.

However, one of those “favorite sons” — Rubio — is, grudgingly, backing Trump, giving other politicians cover to make the same calculation.

Trump’s campaign did not attach much importance to the support of high-profile establishment Republicans.

“If establishment Republicans in Ohio and Florida were so influential, perhaps Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or John Kasich would be the nominee,” said Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks. “Mr. Trump won 67 out of 68 counties in Florida and is currently leading in the most recent head-to-head polls out of Ohio.”

(The most recent poll out of Ohio, from CBS/YouGov, has Clinton leading by 5 percentage points in Ohio; but one from Quinnipiac that ended at the beginning of May showed Trump leading by 4 percentage points.)

Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade County GOP, said that for all of the prominent opposition from lawmakers, rank-and-file voters and activists are still largely getting in line.

“He does face a little bit more of a challenge, certainly more of a challenge than Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, because those were more mainstream candidates that were more popular,” he said. “But at the same time, this isn’t the year for mainstream candidates. I don’t sense a lot of rank-and-file people saying things like ‘Never Trump.’”

And Trump has plenty of prominent establishment-minded supporters as well.

Former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, for example, a longtime Bush ally who lives in Tampa, says he has gotten comfortable enough with Trump to back him without hesitation, though he does not currently have plans to raise money for him.

Back in Ohio, Voinovich, too, didn’t rule out supporting Trump one day — but he says there are still too many unanswered policy questions about what Trump would actually do, and what he truly believes, to get on board right now — a concern that comes just as the GOP wants to project a unified front headed into the convention.

Asked whether Trump would win Ohio today, Voinovich replied, “No.”