Peter Hart, a Democrat and one of the country’s most respected pollsters, admitted on Friday that Donald Trump can win the White House if he has “one sane month” on the campaign trail.
After conducting a focus group of Wisconsin voters last night for the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, Hart appeared on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” and said voters “don’t trust Clinton to give them an honest answer and they don’t trust Trump to be a safe leader.”
When host Chuck Todd asked Hart which candidate had the best chance of winning the election and undecided voters after conducting the focus group if he had no idea of any of the current poll numbers, Hart said that Trump did because he has the “better hand.”
“I say that as a Democratic pollster,” Hart said, adding that though voters think Trump is “crazy” and “off the board,” if “he had a sane month, which is probably impossible, he would get a full listen from these voters. They still want change and they’re unhappy with what’s going on.”
Hart said voters cannot relate to Clinton and “sense that there is a glass curtain. They can’t reach her. They feel that there is a mask. They want to be able to feel like they know her, and they don’t.”
Voters in Hart’s focus group reportedly compared Clinton to a step-mother and said her dishonesty made their “blood boil.” But voters also reportedly compared Trump to the “drunk uncle.”
Hart also disagreed with former Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who predicted that this election will be a blowout. Hart said “he would put up money” that the election is not going to be a blowout because unlike the 1984 election in which Ronald Reagan won 49 states, the polls have been much more “seesaw” this year.
Indeed, Trump gained seven points on Clinton in Reuters’s national tracking poll and is tied with her in the most recent Breitbart News/Gravis national poll.
According to Hart, voters have given Trump more chances than he deserves and will continue to do so because they are thirsting for change and do not trust Clinton at all.
“It’s not game over yet,” Hart said.