CBS News Election Director Anthony Salvanto described the “big themes” animating Donald Trump’s base of support during a segment on Sunday’s Face The Nation. Joining colleague John Dickerson, he observed Trump’s supporters’s concerns as cutting to the heart of American identity.
“[Trump’s supporters are] concerned about issues like, what it means to be an American,” said Salvanto, later adding, “They are talking about not only what it means to be an American. They see the nation as being at war. Larger issues of identity.”
While not isolating the changes to immigration and refugee admission policies over the past half century, Salvanto exposits on drivers of Trump’s supporters’ concerns without denigrating them as old, white, fearful, and hate-filled racists.
Republican voters, added Salvanto, see America facing “existential” threats to its nationhood.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, were concerned with “procedural” adjustments to management of the economy.
Salvanto concluded that Republicans and Democrats are essentially speaking different political languages, with the two camps mostly concerned about entirely different issues.
Below is a transcript of Salvanto’s comments via CBS News.
SALVANTO: What’s holding him up is that his voters are concerned with much larger issues than what we in Washington get concerned about, the day-to-day ups and downs, what he says, how much money he raises in the campaign. They’re concerned about issues like, what it means to be an American. Big themes, that’s what they say.
They’re concerned about things like the pace of globalization. You were talking about Brexit earlier. And there are some similarities between what we saw over there in Britain and what you see in Donald Trump’s voters that I think are instructive, not necessarily predictive. You know, his voters are saying that the pace of cultural change is going too fast for them.
So with these larger themes in mind — and their missions is really to upend and change a system that they don’t think is working, then the day-to-day movements of the campaign and what he says just don’t matter that much.
DICKERSON: Right, so they’re focused on the big stuff, where they think there’s a big distinction between the candidates. So any little thing is just kind of beside the point.
SALVANTO: Yes.
DICKERSON: Let’s talk about — in the — in the polls, there had been a national picture which shows Donald Trump doing worse than Hillary Clinton by 4, 5, 6 points depending on which national poll you look at. But in these states it seems much closer. Is there a reason for that?
SALVANTO: Yes, and it’s partisanship. I mean one of the reasons you should always watch the battleground states, besides the obvious fact that the election is decided state by state, is that these are battleground states for a reason. They’re close in terms of their partisan split between Democrats and Republicans. And what you see in all of these numbers now is that partisans have come home to both these candidates, divided into their respective corners and they’re not moving. And that’s — that’s underpinning each of their support.
DICKERSON: So let’s talk about Hillary Clinton. What is holding her up? What do her voters want to see?
SALVANTO: Yes, something very different, which is, they’re looking for somebody who can manage things day to day. They’re interested in having an economy that they think works fairly and securing rights for people who don’t yet have them but deserve them. So that’s a very big contrast.
In fact, you know, you want to make note of that contrast. Even as we get here in the early part of the campaign, defining what the campaign is about. You know, they’re not always — even arguing over the same things.
DICKERSON: Right.
SALVANTO: These voters — for Republicans, this is almost, you know, at the risk of hyperbole, this is almost existential. They’re talking about not only what it means to be an American. They see the nation as being at war. Larger issues of identity.
DICKERSON: Think of it more in terms of terrorism.
SALVANTO: Yes.
DICKERSON: The threat from terrorism continues.
SALVANTO: Yes. Yes. And — and so — so those are larger issues for them, whereas for Democrats it seems much more procedural, how they manage this, how the economy works and so they’re very — they’re very, very different in both — in what they see as actually this election being about.
DICKERSON: Any — anything nervous for Hillary Clinton to — or anything for her to be nervous about in these findings?
SALVANTO: Yes, well, she’s leading, but at the same time, she has to watch a couple of things. One is that Donald Trump continues to own the issue of change. More people in these states say he can bring change.
Now, he’s limited to some extent, because the voters we talked about, the ones who feel like they’re not at ease with globalization, et cetera, there is enough of them to keep him where he is, but not yet to propel him to a win. So if they start to look more for change for change’s sake, then I think we could see the needle move a little bit.
DICKERSON: Twenty seconds. What about candidate running as Republicans with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. What do they have to be concerned about?
SALVANTO: Well, the top of the ticket always effects the down ballot — we call it down ballot races. The mechanics of that are that people don’t split tickets much anymore and so the party will be concerned that if their presidential candidate doesn’t do well, that people running for Senate and House will get dragged down because of that.
DICKERSON: Wonderful, Anthony. Thanks, as always. We’ll look forward to having you back.
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