2018 Gov’s Playbook: GOP’s Growing Problems
Monday, October 01, 2018
Republican gubernatorial candidate Allan Fung has a growing number of problems that he has to overcome to win the 2018 election.
First, Fung has a “Trump” problem. In Rhode Island, Trump won nearly 40 percent of the vote in 2016, but since then polling shows his popularity falling. An October 2017 poll conducted by Harvard’s John Della Volpe for GoLocal found that 71 percent of Rhode Islanders rank Trump’s performance as fair or poor.
Fung during a recent debate hosted by WPRI tried most everything possible to deflect why he was wearing a “Trump hat” at the January, 2017 inauguration of the President.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTSecond, all GOP candidates in 2018 face the unknown impact from the fallout of the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. There is a growing belief that the hearings will add to the growing gender gap problem for Republican candidates especially in purple and blue states like Rhode Island.
“By muscling forward with a floor vote next week, Republicans would also imperil several Senate Democrats from strongly conservative states who have opposed Judge Kavanaugh or expressed ambivalence about his nomination. Yet in doing so, Republicans would energize many Democrats and a share of independents in suburban congressional districts and big-state governor’s races where female voters were already enraged by Mr. Trump and polls have shown a gender gap stretching to canyon-sized proportions. Republicans’ ability to keep their thin House majority depends on political moderates who were already skeptical of Judge Kavanaugh before this past week,” reported the New York Times on Sunday.
The implication is that the Kavanaugh debate is a motivating issue for women voters especially in a Democratic state where a male Republican is running against an incumbent Democratic woman — Governor Gina Raimondo.
Third, Fung has a “Trillo problem.” Joe Trillo, Trump’s 2016 RI campaign chairman, is running as an independent and continues to hammer both Fung and Democrat Raimondo.
His line of the campaign asked if voters wanted “giveaway Gina or flip-flop Fung.” By most estimations, most of Trillo votes would revert to Fung if Trillo was not in the race.
Related Slideshow: 2018 Governor’s Race Playbook - October 1, 2018
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