Seth Masket: “Until fairly recently, it was standard practice for presidential candidates to spend the final weeks of a campaign trying to woo centrist voters in swing states while downplaying the most extreme supporters in their base, whom they knew would show up anyway.”
“Trump has flipped that strategy on its head. Based on his experiences from 2016 and 2020, he knows that a lot of mainstream Republicans and Republican leaners will complain quite a bit about his rhetoric and behavior, and maybe threaten to vote for someone else, but when it comes down to a choice between him and a Democrat, they’ll still show up for him. And anyone who really has a problem with him probably left the Republican Party years ago.”
“Instead, he treats the moderate Republicans as his reliable base, and wants to make sure that the extremists are exercised enough to show up on Election Day. The racist comments at Madison Square Garden are designed to do exactly that.”
