Disaster looming

The disaster looming for Trump

There are two very different storylines that emerged from New Hampshire: The first is former President Donald Trump’s cult-like support among diehard Republicans. The more important story, though, is his stunning weakness among independents.

Paul Begala

Trump lost a stunning two-thirds of New Hampshire voters who are not in either political party, according to initial results from a CNN exit poll. In Iowa, 43% of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s supporters said they would vote for President Joe Biden against Trump.

That the Republican Party is now one more Trump property is news from nowhere. In the eight years since he slithered down that escalator in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, he has remade the party. Where Reagan-Bush Republicans stood for limited government, strong national defense, and traditional family values, Trump added about $8 trillion to the national debt, disdains NATO, and has been found by a jury of his peers to be civilly liable for sexual abuse (which he has denied).

Trump’s challenge, now that the nomination fight is effectively over, will be to appeal to voters who are turned off by his cult of personality. His angry, bitter speech Tuesday night was a terrible beginning for the general election. Did the grievance-filled rant against Haley sound like a winner to you? No, it sounded like a guy who is in deep doo-doo with independents.

This is a potential disaster for Trump. To attend this year’s Iowa GOP caucuses in the freezing cold, you had to be a very committed Republican. (Unlike New Hampshire, Iowa does not allow independents to vote in the GOP caucus.) And yet nearly half of the loyal Republicans who supported Haley in Iowa say they cannot support Trump in November; Biden wins them by a margin of 20 points.

Trump’s team should have a well-deserved drink. But the hangover is going to be brutal.