Convention mayhem?

GOP insiders expect convention mayhem

'I say this with no joy whatsoever, but the far-left agitators in Cleveland will make the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago look like a fourth-grade slap fight,' said an Ohio Republican.

By Steven Shepard

Nearly half of GOP insiders in key battleground states — many of whom will be in attendance — believe there’s a good chance violence will break out around next week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus: a panel of swing-state operatives, activists and strategists. Forty-eight percent of Republican insiders said the odds are high that there will be violence at the convention that is likely to nominate Donald Trump, compared with 52 percent who thought the convention would be a mostly peaceful affair.

“Given the tenor of the campaign trail so far this year, coupled with rising social unrest, it is bound to spill over,” said one Iowa Republican, who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously. “It's really more a matter of how bad it will get.”

“The reaction and counter-reaction to the resurgent identity politics gripping the country’s politics make at least some clashes and mayhem a near certainty,” added a North Carolina Republican.

For the GOP insiders most concerned about violence in Cleveland, many cited protest groups tied to liberal causes, like the Black Lives Matter movement. Nearly a half-dozen Republicans mentioned the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, who is a prolific donor to liberal causes. But few thought violence would ensue from an effort to fight Trump’s nomination on the convention floor.

“It’s simply too big of a target for the malcontents and violent left to miss,” said an Iowa Republican. “George Soros’ money will pay for thousands of disaffected screaming thugs. Think Seattle [1999], Chicago 1968. Riots and looting. They are the tools of the liberal left.”

“I say this with no joy whatsoever,” a Republican in the host state of Ohio added, “but the far-left agitators in Cleveland will make the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago look like a fourth-grade slap fight.”

“Cleveland is a rough town in the first place,” added another Iowa Republican, who warned against the “professional lefty protesters and anarchists” in town for the convention. “[G]iven the mood of the country the last three weeks, someone is gonna get hurt.”

Most of the Republicans who think the convention will be mostly peaceful said law enforcement would have things under control, and the shootings in Dallas last week that killed five police officers would temper any kind of violent protests.

“I am in Cleveland as I write this,” said a Colorado Republican. “Could there be some violence? Sure. But the protesters I’ve seen (and interacted with) are paid. They have been flown here by organizations looking to foment unrest. At the end of the day, most of them are college kids who won’t have an appetite for an actual confrontation with the considerable law enforcement presence here.”

Added a New Hampshire Republican: “Cops getting shot has a chilling effect on those who might have thought about aggressive protesting.”

While most of the Republicans who were worried about violence placed the blame on protesters whom they mostly dismissed, a number did say that Trump bears some responsibility for the threats of tumult in Cleveland. One Michigan Republican said Trump “invites violence.” A Pennsylvania Republican said he “invites chaos.”

“Tensions are high,” added an Ohio Republican. “Trump is explosive.”

Insiders mostly trust public polling in their states.

Swing-state polls this week are all over the map, but insiders in those Electoral College battlegrounds say they still trust the public pollsters to get it right much of the time.

Sixty-eight percent of insiders from both parties said the public polling in their state is mostly accurate. Just 32 percent said those public surveys are not very accurate.

Still, there are important differences from state to state, and the comments from insiders in a number of the Caucus states were instructive:

In Colorado, one Democrat cast doubt on a Monmouth University poll released earlier this week: “[Hillary] Clinton is up 13 points in a Monmouth poll out this week; that seems ambitious. We think she is up by 5-6 points and still needs to work hard to maintain a winning margin.” (An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll out Friday, after our Caucus participants had filed their responses, showed Clinton’s lead at 8 points.)

Multiple Republicans in Florida said a Quinnipiac University poll this week showing Trump with a 3-point lead seems overly optimistic for the presumptive GOP nominee. Two Republicans volunteered that they thought the poll is an “outlier.”

“My state is particularly complicated to poll, and most outside groups aren’t careful enough with subgroups and regional breaks, which is why public polls are all over the place,” added a Florida Democrat. “I wish they’d ban the damn things.”

Nevada is one of the hardest states to poll, according to insiders in both parties.

Seventy percent of the voters “are in one county, and that county has the highest cellphone-only rate in the country,” said one Republican there. “The place is dotted with big employment centers that operate 24 hours a day, so there isn't a good time to call to reach a considerable demographic.”

A Democrat cited Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s relatively easy victory over Republican Sharron Angle in 2010, despite entering Election Day with a small deficit in the polls. “Polling in Nevada is notorious for sucking,” the Democrat said.

Another Democrat said the state is “hard to poll” but added that this week’s Monmouth University poll showing Clinton with a 4-point lead was “in line with private polling, both statewide and in key congressional and state legislative districts. She’s down a bit thanks to the FBI announcement, but she’s maintaining a narrow lead.”

New Hampshire insiders noted the state is polled frequently, but an academic pollster there cautioned against leaning on polls this early for predictive value.

“Real people have real lives that don’t revolve around politics,” the pollster said. “I’ve been an academic pollster for 30 years, and it never fails to make me chuckle how the media pay attention to summertime polls. Just plain silly!”

The Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin was praised by insiders in both parties. One Democrat said it “has been eerily accurate in recent elections, and [I] believe it is again. Charles Franklin and his team have the state down.”

Marquette and Franklin are “the gold standard,” added a Wisconsin Republican. “Polls that are done by third-party groups have to stack up to the [Marquette] poll.”