(DCNF)—A former Trump administration official told CNBC host Joe Kernen Monday that a lot of voters who backed former President Donald Trump were Democrats during the 2004 election.
Trump has gained support among both black and Hispanic voters, largely due to the economy and immigration, before President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21. Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton said that blue-collar and middle-class voters in the middle of Pennsylvania who voted for Democrats during the 2004 election would be crucial for Trump.
“Let’s recognize what I think a couple of your guests have already said, which is the Trump voter is a different voter today than the Republican voter of 20 years ago,” Clayton told “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen. “In fact, the Trump voter of today was a Democratic voter of 20 years ago.”
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“Many of them,” Kernen responded.
Trump leads Harris in a head-to-head matchup by 0.3% in polls of Pennsylvania voters from Oct. 18 to Nov. 3, according to the RealClearPolling average. Trump leads or is tied in the last eight polls that include independent candidate Cornel West, Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver as options.
Biden led Trump by 2.6% in the RealClearPolling average of polls of Pennsylvania voters in 2020, but only won by 1.2% that year. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led Trump by 2.1% in the polling average, but lost the Keystone State to Trump in 2016 by 0.7%.
“And going back to Pennsylvania, if you get those people in the middle of the state, blue collar jobs, middle class people, to turn out, then Trump wins,” Clayton said. “And it’s very hard, it’s very hard for pollsters to do that because it’s new. It’s not patterns that you’ve seen in the past.”
Trump leads in the RealClearPolling for four of the six other swing states, with Harris holding small leads in Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump outperformed polls in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to RealClearPolling.
Trump trailed Clinton by 6.5% in the final average before beating Clinton in Wisconsin by 0.7%, while Biden led Trump by 6.7% before securing a 0.7% win in 2020. In Michigan, Trump trailed Biden by 5.1% but lost the state by only 2.8% in 2020, while Clinton led Trump by 3.6% in Michigan 2016, only to lose the state by 0.3% when the votes were counted.
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