Polls: Donald Trump's tweets aimed at freshman House members cut both ways

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s attacks on four freshman congresswomen of color have has cost him support among key blocs of voters who were critical to his 2016 win, but solidified his support among Republicans, according to recent national polls.

Trump ignited a firestorm when he issued a series of tweets on July 14 directed at Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Trump said they should "go back" and try to fix the "crime infested places" they "originally came from" before telling the government how to deal with its problems. All are U.S. citizens, and three of the four were born in the United States. Omar is a Somali-born refugee who migrated to the United States in 1992.

House Democrats passed a resolution condemning the tweets as racist and xenophobic. But trump's allies say his lines of attack are part of a broader strategy to make the 2020 election not a referendum on his first term in office, but a vote on the liberal leaning ideology of the lawmakers.

Political analysts say Trump’s ramped up rhetoric against the four lawmakers may galvanize support among a core segment of his base, but threatens to push away moderate swing voters who backed him in 2016.

A Fox News poll released last Wednesday found 63 percent of those surveyed believed Trump’s tweets “crossed the line,” compared with 27 percent who deemed the tweets “an acceptable political attack.”

The poll of 1,004 registered voters found Republicans were less likely to view the tweets critically — 53 percent said the tweets were acceptable political attacks, compared to 33 percent who said they crossed the line. Among Democrats 88 percent said the attacks crossed the line, and 68 percent of independents also disagreed with the attacks.

The Fox News poll also found groups that were key to Trump’s 2016 victory said the tweets crossed the line: 73 percent of suburban women, and 64 percent of voters in counties where Hillary Clinton and Trump where within 10 points of each other in 2016.

The poll, conducted July 21-23, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

In a USA Today/Ipsos poll released July 17, 68 percent of voters said Trump’s tweets aimed at the lawmakers were “offensive.” Most Republicans sided with the President: only 37 percent called the tweets offensive, compared with 93 percent of Democrats.

The poll, conducted July 15-16, found that two key groups — independents and women — disapproved of the president’s tweets. Seventy-six percent of women and 68 percent of independents said the tweets were offensive. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Rosanna Perotti, a political-science professor at Hofstra University, said Trump’s “words and tweets strengthen him among his base supporters,” but could alienate swing voters who sided with him in 2016 because of his economic policies.

Perotti said Trump’s tweets appear to be aimed at animating his base to turn out in large numbers next November. Democrats won control of the U.S. House during last year’s midterm election, by picking up 23 seats in districts won by Trump in 2016.

“He can rely on, and attempt to boost the turnout of his supporters during the 2016 election, even though they did not turn out in great numbers in 2018,” Perotti said of Trump.

For months, top Trump campaign aides have sought to cast the 2020 election not as a conventional race between Trump and whichever Democrat emerges as his challenger, but as a choice between Trump and the positions of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib.

Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh has called the group “the standard-bearers for Democrats.” Trump has called the congresswomen the “radical” face of the Democratic Party and made unfounded claims that they “hate” America. The lawmakers have pushed back on Trump’s labels, saying he is trying to distract from his own record.

Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib — elected as part of a 2018 midterm election that delivered the House majority to Democrats — are just four of 235 House Democrats. They are part of a freshman class of Democrats that saw a larger share of moderates win districts previously won by Trump in 2016 — 19 moderate Democrats won in Trump districts, compared to four self-declared progressives.

Republicans close to Trump have been split on whether Trump’s return to racially divisive rhetoric will help or hinder his 2020 chances. The President, who in 2016 campaigned on promises to enact a Muslim travel ban and who characterized Mexican immigrants as criminals, lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, but was able to secure his victory via the electoral college.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News the president’s targeting of the four freshman lawmakers was intentional and part of Trump’s strategy to cast the women as the face of the Democratic party to create “a major dividing line in 2020.”

“I think the President believes that the more he can get the country to look at the so-called squad, the more he can get them to realize how radical they are and how fundamentally anti-American their views are, in the long run the better off he is,” Gingrich said. “I think he would like to see them as sort of the front page of the Democratic Party. And I think he thinks anything he does to elevate them is to his net advantage.”

Former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci, a Long Island financier who helped fundraise for Trump’s 2016 campaign, told CNN he would advise the President to focus on talking about the economy instead of escalating his rhetoric against Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib.

“What ends up happening is, it's such a turnoff to a large group of people that you are running a risk that 15 percent of the people that you want to get you through that electoral map and back into the presidency say, ‘you know what? I love the policies, but I don't like the ‘send her back’ rhetoric,’” Scaramucci said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Asked if he believed Trump’s targeting of the lawmakers was a winning 2020 strategy, Scaramucci said: “Well, listen, they won last time, so it may be a winning campaign strategy. But it is against the idealistic values of America.”