Trump aide in Iowa expects strong ‘crossover’ vote in 2016

URBANDALE - Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump offers a charismatic, populist appeal that could take him beyond Ronald Reagan in drawing working class, disaffected and disillusioned voters to his non-traditional campaign style, a high-ranking Iowan in the Trump camp said Wednesday.

Sam Clovis, 67, an economics professor, former talk-radio host and 2014 statewide political candidate who now serves as national co-chair and policy adviser for Trump's campaign, said the New York billionaire is unlike 'any candidate we've ever had” and cannot be measured by traditional standards.

Clovis said he has been impressed by Trump's intellect, his business background that included working blue-collar jobs in his formative years, and his ability to speak to 'the common person, the rank-and-file, the working stiff, in a way that they understand.”

That 'crossover” appeal will enable the GOP candidate to compete in states that are not traditionally in play for Republicans, such as New York, Clovis told a group of Iowa conservatives, and has union leaders 'scared to death” because Trump is aggressively 'going after” their base, like Reagan did.

'We're cultivating that, and I think that we can win them over,” Clovis said. 'This coalition is going to be totally different from what we've seen in the past. I think that it's even going to be more diverse than the Ronald Reagan coalition.”

Trump, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, are 'touching the nerves of people who felt abandoned by their parties,” Clovis told members of the Westside Conservative Club. 'We are attracting people to come and vote who have never voted in their lives, and it's changing our party, and we have to start recognizing some of those changes.”

The Hinton Republican, who lost bids two years ago as a candidate for Iowa's U.S. Senate seat and later the state's treasurer, urged Republicans who have not been to a Trump rally to attend, because it is a 'unbelievable experience” to see people of 'every color, every stripe, every station in life,” unlike what gets portrayed by mainstream media.

'I've seen him in those crowds. It's mesmerizing. He has charisma and he connects,” Clovis noted. 'Those people would walk through concrete walls for him. They're that committed, because he makes that connection, and if you haven't been, you need to go, because there's nothing like it that I've ever seen.”

Several audience members expressed concern over emerging images of Trump point to a 'lack of judgment” in making controversial statements that alienate, rather that bring Americans under the GOP banner.

'I don't care what he says, I care what he does,” said Clovis, who expected Trump to surround himself with conservatives in an administration focused on growing the economy first and foremost and reshaping government to address subsidies, grants, entitlements, debt and other concerns.

'It's been a bruising campaign. I think there's been a lot of hurt feelings; a lot of hard feelings still; and we'll get over that, because now we have a choice. It's Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and I can't imagine another four year or eight years of Democratic control of the White House. It just boggles the mind, so we've got our work cut out for us,” he said.

'I hope you all will go out and help us work to win in November, because the alternative is unthinkable,” added Clovis.