Democrats to Clinton: Don't laugh off Trump threat

The populist billionaire could be a potent general election candidate, Democratic strategists warn.
It’s time to stop pointing and laughing at the Republican primary. For all the GOP front-runner’s flaws, many veteran Democrats are beginning to conclude, Donald Trump is a canny operator who just might end up in the White House if they’re not careful.

He appears to be cracking the code with white working-class voters who could help him put blue Rust Belt states in play against Hillary Clinton. He’s helping to fuel record turnout in GOP primaries and he’s mastered the media like no candidate in recent memory, with his constant feeding of catnip to cable TV and his 140-character missiles on Twitter. “It’s fair to say there’s been a graveyard already out there of people underestimating him,” said Doug Sosnik, a former Bill Clinton White House adviser. “And I am old enough to remember the sort of Democratic intelligentsia that was hoping Ronald Reagan would be nominated by Republicans in 1980 because everyone knew he was a doddering old right winger who could never get elected president.”“So there is some danger to underestimating his candidacy,” Sosnik said.

Tracy Sefl, a Democratic consultant who was a senior adviser for Ready for Hillary, said Trump was the most dangerous Republican candidate to come out of the primary because he’s “unpredictable, shameless, unapologetic” — and utilizes a non-strategy strategy that has so far worked for him.“He doesn’t do defense. He’s immune to any sort of fundamentals of campaigning. He’s just doing it his way,” she said.It’s a mistake to dismiss Trump's appeal against Hillary Clinton, other Democrats have concluded, especially as he continues to roll up wins across the map on his march to the Republican nomination.“I think Trump could beat her like a tied-up billy goat,” said Mudcat Saunders, a rural Democratic strategist who’s supporting Bernie Sanders.

“There are many areas in key swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that look like Sherman went through and didn’t burn anything. Empty factories, empty buildings, few opportunities for young people. It’s sad. It should be no surprise to anybody that voters in those areas are gravitating to Trump.”

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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/democrats-on-donald-trump-threat-220118