(DCNF)—A former Trump administration official told CNBC host Joe Kernen Monday that a lot of voters who backed former President Donald Trump were Democrats during the 2004 election.
Trump has gained support among both black and Hispanic voters, largely due to the economy and immigration, before President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21. Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton said that blue-collar and middle-class voters in the middle of Pennsylvania who voted for Democrats during the 2004 election would be crucial for Trump.
“Let’s recognize what I think a couple of your guests have already said, which is the Trump voter is a different voter today than the Republican voter of 20 years ago,” Clayton told “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen. “In fact, the Trump voter of today was a Democratic voter of 20 years ago.”
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“Many of them,” Kernen responded.
Trump leads Harris in a head-to-head matchup by 0.3% in polls of Pennsylvania voters from Oct. 18 to Nov. 3, according to the RealClearPolling average. Trump leads or is tied in the last eight polls that include independent candidate Cornel West, Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver as options.
Biden led Trump by 2.6% in the RealClearPolling average of polls of Pennsylvania voters in 2020, but only won by 1.2% that year. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led Trump by 2.1% in the polling average, but lost the Keystone State to Trump in 2016 by 0.7%.
“And going back to Pennsylvania, if you get those people in the middle of the state, blue collar jobs, middle class people, to turn out, then Trump wins,” Clayton said. “And it’s very hard, it’s very hard for pollsters to do that because it’s new. It’s not patterns that you’ve seen in the past.”
Trump leads in the RealClearPolling for four of the six other swing states, with Harris holding small leads in Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump outperformed polls in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to RealClearPolling.
Trump trailed Clinton by 6.5% in the final average before beating Clinton in Wisconsin by 0.7%, while Biden led Trump by 6.7% before securing a 0.7% win in 2020. In Michigan, Trump trailed Biden by 5.1% but lost the state by only 2.8% in 2020, while Clinton led Trump by 3.6% in Michigan 2016, only to lose the state by 0.3% when the votes were counted.
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(DCNF)—Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds got into a near shouting match with CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin Monday as they debated Republican nominee Donald Trump’s rally in New York City.
Trump held a major rally at Madison Square Garden alongside several prominent figures Sunday night, which critics have compared to the 1939 pro-Nazi rally at the same arena. Donalds said on “Squawk Box” that these racism accusations are an attempt by the media to “fear monger” and argued no one at the rally agreed with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage.”
“To the New York Daily News: is it a racist rally if you have a black man from Florida who’s originally from New York speaking at the rally? I don’t think so,” Donalds said, referring to himself. “This is the problem with most media today. They’re too busy trying to fear monger everything instead of actually talking about the facts and the substance. It was a great rally that we had last night. Donald Trump obviously spoke last night, did he say something that was off color? No, he did not. I spoke. Did I say something off color? No, I did not. Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, did they say anything that was off color? No, they did not.”
The New York Daily News published a headline titled, “Trump’s MSG event turns into ugly racist rally, speakers insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews,” while The Associated Press wrote a headline called “Trump’s Madison Square Garden event turns into a rally with crude and racist insults.”
Co-host Rebecca Quick said many of the attendees and speakers at the rally have distanced themselves from Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, which Donalds said he and the campaign disagreed with.
“Okay, so The Associated Press, ‘Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults.’ That did happen. You may not have been the one making them, but that did happen,” Sorkin said.
“And [Quick] just said it, the campaign has distanced itself from it, they do not agree, I do not agree. Unfortunately, it was said, but nobody agrees with it,” Donalds replied.
Sorkin argued that many voters who agree with Trump’s policies oppose him because of his rhetoric, and accused those who do support the former president of being “willing to engage” in alleged “vitriol.”
“Kamala Harris spends half of her time talking about her rival as Hitler after he’s been, after the attempts on his life, not once, but twice. She’s doing it right now. Every Democrat official at these rallies refer to him as Adolf Hitler. You’ve got [former Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton running out there hawking her book that nobody wants to buy frankly, and she’s talking about how this is akin to 1939. Are you out of your mind? If you want to talk about rhetoric, compare. But let me go back. We are talking about the comments of a comedian and everybody’s gonna forget it in 48 hours. The real joke in America is the terrible policies of Kamala Harris,” Donalds said, saying Puerto Ricans are struggling under Harris.
“I’m not disagreeing with you on that front. I’m just saying to the extent that you can speak to those people who are out there now watching saying, ‘I agree with the Trump policies, but I just can’t abide by reading headlines like that,’” Sorkin said.
Donalds said voters have to decide whether they want to believe the media who he accused of being “in the tank” for Harris or live under a continuation of the vice president’s policies.