Trump believes he possesses hidden strength that may only materialize at the ballot box. At rallies, he’s begun speculating that the election will be like “Brexit times five,” implying that he’ll upend expectations much as the Brexit vote shocked experts who didn’t believe a majority of Britons would vote to leave the European Union. Trump’s data scientists, including some from the London firm Cambridge Analytica who worked on the “Leave” side of the Brexit initiative, think they’ve identified a small, fluctuating group of people who are reluctant to admit their support for Trump and may be throwing off public polls.
I read this after the election (I’m a bit behind on Instapaper articles) and it’s interesting how misrepresented this “small, fluctuating group” ended up becoming the reason Donald Trump won.
Since Trump paid to build this audience with his own campaign funds, he alone will own it after Nov. 8 and can deploy it to whatever purpose he chooses. He can sell access to other campaigns or use it as the basis for a 2020 presidential run. It could become the audience for a Trump TV network. As Bannon puts it: “Trump is an entrepreneur.”
This has not been talked about lately but there is a huge list of people that Trump now owns and call sell to whoever he wants. This is why I don’t donate any money to political groups. Today, I’m not on anyone’s list. I’ve never received a single email or letter from a politician. I’ve heard some horror stories on how awful the experience is even after giving a single dollar to a politician even a small district in the middle of nowhere and supposedly you get mailings from that party for the rest of your life.