Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said in an interview that aired Tuesday on “What America’s Thinking” that President Trump is strongest when he is appealing to his base as a conservative populist.
“When he’s strongest, he’s a conservative populist, and he gets that,” Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons on Monday.
Simmons said Trump’s populist appeal has to do with how he campaigned on economics in 2016.
“If the president governed the way he campaigned, except for immigration, you take immigration, and you put it to the side, you take his personal issues and put them to the side, but you talk about the economic ideas, if he governed that way, I think he would have been a very tough person for Democrats to beat,” Simmons said.
“I completely agree with you,” Lake responded.
Trump was able to appeal to working-class Democratic voters in traditionally blue states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, through being sympathetic to their economic concerns.
Trump was able to do this by promising to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and by being sympathetic to workers in the non-renewable energy sector.
— Julia Manchester
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