LARRY KUDLOW: Trump will unify the Republican party

Now for a few thoughts from me. It’s not enough that Donald Trump romped to victory in 14 out of 15 Super Tuesday primary states last night and he’s going to wrap up the GOP nomination in a couple weeks and that a year ago, or two years ago, or three years ago, virtually no one honestly expected this to happen. It’s a comeback for the ages. 

Remember, he won crushing victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan before last night. No, it’s not enough for pundits to keep trying to chip away at the former President’s achievement by getting into this dog-chases-tail argument about unifying the Republican Party. Of course he will unify the Republican party. He said so last night. 

In his speech last night at Mar-a-Lago he said: “We want to have unity, and we’re going to have unity, and it’s going to happen very quickly” and then, money line, and I quote again: “And I have been saying lately, success will bring unity to our country.” That’s just so important. With all due respect to Nikki Haley’s voter totals, they were disproportionately not Republican voters. 

There’s always been a small sliver of the remaining Mitt Romney-John McCain GOP establishment that never liked Donald Trump in the first place and Trump will reach out once again to that sliver. Count on it, but, for the broader electorate, the New York Times-Siena poll showed that of those that voted for Trump in 2020, 97% expect to vote for him again this year, which is a huge number, and of those that voted for Biden in 2020, only 83% expect to vote for him again. 

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So, if anything, it kind of looks like it’s Joe Biden that has a unity problem. Especially analyzing the Democratic Party primaries, Democrats not voting for Biden range from 36% in New Hampshire, 29% in Minnesota, 19% in Michigan, 17% in Massachusetts, and on and on. 

Newt Gingrich writes today that the new Trump coalition is breaking up the old Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic coalition of minorities, Jews, working folks and small businesses. That’s exactly the new Trump coalition and that’s the unifying element that so many pundits don’t seem to understand. 

The reason Joe Biden’s losing right now in the polls is lower- and middle-income working folks have taken a pay cut, when accounting for the ravages of inflation, but those very same groups had a big pay increase under Mr. Trump, and they remember it. 

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley talks about the New York Times-Siena survey showing Trump’s Black support ticking up to 23% and among Hispanics, 46% compared to Joe Biden’s 40%. In 2020, Mr. Biden won the Black vote 92 to 8, and the Hispanic vote 59 to 38. Those are gigantic changes. 

The affordability crisis is taking its toll. Working class folks, whether they be White, Black, Brown, Asian, female, male, young or old – all want a pay raise, not a Biden pay cut.

Mr. Riley, who is not a supporter of Donald Trump’s, nonetheless points out that, during the Trump years, the lowest percentiles of earners — of which minorities make up a greater share — they had the biggest percentage gains in weekly income. 

Now add to that a tough policy to close the border, a major concerted effort to stop crime and lawlessness throughout the country, and some commonsense strategies to restore our reputation abroad — you’ve got the makings of a Trump victory based on successful policies and a newly united, proud America. That’s how this game could be playing out. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the March 6, 2023, edition of “Kudlow.”