This is one of the few Medium articles to acknowledge the soft support of political parties. It's amazing at how Americans don't understand this part about campaigning.
There is very little vote switching. A Trump supporter, even a soft one, is unlikely to vote D. But that soft supporter can be convinced to stay home on election day. That is almost as good as a D vote.
Negative advertising is designed to convince soft supporters that their preference is not worth the effort to make a trip to the polling station. The people in the back rooms of the D party should be designing their campaigns around that.
Here's the math. Mr. Trump consistently gets a 40% approval rating. Multiply that by 235m voters, Mr. Trump get 94m votes. He is not going to get that number. Many of that 40% will tell a pollster they are T supporters, but won't make the trip to the polls. Pollsters cannot measure that motivation.
The key to winning close elections is managing the soft support of both parties. Canvassers can identify the soft support of their party and work to get them to the polls. Not as easy as this article claims. Propaganda specialists identify the preferred media of the soft support of the other party--and design ads to reduce their motivation to make a trip to the polls. A lot easier--if the money is there--to be effective than canvassing.
But should we really be charting history based on the Machiavellian techniques of the political parties?
Let's consider a new way.
Tiered Democratic Governance
