Patrick Caddell, Democratic pollster and Fox News Insider, tells Breitbart News Daily radio host Matthew Boyle that with less than two weeks left in the presidential campaign, enough voters are still in play to make a winner of either Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
“It is about the big issues and what I am looking for is what happens with the volatile voters,” he said.
By big issues, the pollster said he is looking at trade, immigration, refugee programs, the direction of the country and the economy. On these issues, the majority of the voters agree with the positions held by Trump, including at least 20 percent of Clinton supporters.
If Trump can make the election a referendum on the big issues, he would elevate himself above the head-to-head personality contest, Caddell says.
Another benefit for Trump, if he can elevate his campaign above the nasty personal fight with Clinton is that he will activate the latent emotions that are in sync with Trump on the issues.
Throwing a wrench in any analysis of the campaign in its final days is the early voting practices in different states, he said.
Caddell told Boyle he is not a fan of early balloting, which is booming across the country.
In many states, early voting–a combination of absentee ballots submitted by mail and early voting in-person–now accounts for more votes than those cast in person on election day.
“I just want to make a political point, the early voting? It is the most dangerous, stupid thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said.
Caddell said it was a classic example of somebody deciding: “Let’s do something good without thinking about the consequences.”
It would not be a problem to have a weekend of voting or 24 hours of voting, he said. “But, weeks in advance? It walks right into the problem we have now.”
Early voters are hit with remorse, when they hear news that makes them change their mind before the election, he told Boyle, who was hosting the program on SiriusXM “The Patriot” channel 125.
They realize: “If only I had known then,” he said.
Early voting corrupts the process that voters and campaigns should be going through, he said.
“The reason you have an Election Day is to culminate an election with the moment of decision,” he said.
He says voters already knew that Clinton was corrupt, but as the media focused on Trump and his problems, the feelings about Clinton and her corrupt enterprise became latent, just as early voting was starting.
Caddell said in all the Breitbart/Gravis polls there is a solid majority of respondents saying that FBI Director James Comey was wrong when he recommended July 5 that the Department of Justice decline to prosecute the former first lady.
Comey told Congress Friday that there are significant new findings related to the investigation into how Clinton handled sensitive electronic communications, while she was the secretary of state–such a situation activates latent emotions in the voters and leads them to change the mind. But, with early voting, the ballots are already cast.
Left-wing pundits and Democratic surrogates have been going on TV to say that the voters have already factored in Clinton’s corruption, so the new FBI revelation will have not effect, he said.
“They say it is already baked-in,” he said. “Whether it is baked-in or not, the question is how much of the ingredients in the cake it becomes. It is expandable. This is a coalescing point for people–and to think that this is not going to have an impact? You might as well go to Mars.”
For almost two years, the so-called experts have been wrong about Trump, he said. “They have never understood the revolt of the American people going on.”
The country is bound and determined to overthrow the existing order, whether it was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the Democratic side or Trump on the Republican side, Caddell said.
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