January 18, 2016
Is Trump-mania powerful enough to sway a group of moderate, working-class Pennsylvania voters to cast their ballot for the business mogul in a potential showdown with Hillary Clinton? Philadelphia native Chris Matthews seems to think it's a possibility.
Matthews said during his MSNBC show "Hardball" on Friday that "Reagan Democrats" could give his home state of Pennsylvania -- a "swing state" that hasn't swung red in a presidential election since 1988 -- to Trump if his opponent is Clinton. Here's Matthew's reasoning, via RealClearPolitics:
"I think there's a lot of Reagan Democrats waiting to vote for him. I think Pennsylvania might well be in play if he's the nominee because he's unpredictable. Whereas you get Cruz up there you put him over on the far right, Hillary takes the center back, right? And you win."
For context, a "Reagan Democrat" is a distinction given to blue-collar voters in the 1980 and 1984 elections. They usually voted for moderates but supported Ronald Regan because of their frustration with a stagnant economy, among other things. In October, a Reuters report noted that Trump's campaign team is targeting this demographic:
Ed McMullen, Trump's campaign strategist in South Carolina, says the billionaire contender has his sights on “Reagan Democrats” -- working-class voters who tend to support moderates. Those moderate voters famously switched sides and helped Republican Reagan win the 1980 election and the Trump campaign believes it could happen again in 2016 if he makes it to the general election.
But if this strategy works for Trump, it won't be exactly like 1980. As The Daily Beast's Jonathan Alter explained in a December interview with MSNBC, this new breed of "Reagan Democrats" aren't Democrats at all.
They're in large part working-class Republicans, many of whom lost their jobs in the Great Recession, who aren't voters that the Democrats were in any danger of losing. However, they are largely people who don't vote. That habit could change. Political analysts have pointed out that Trump has tapped into the group’s uneasiness and anger, something that other Republican candidates have failed at accessing.
Whether that group pushes Pennsylvania from blue to red remains to be seen, especially since voting hasn't even begun and Trump and Clinton are not locks to secure their parties' nominations.
