Donald Trump’s presidential campaign turns a year old Thursday amid just as much controversy as when he entered the contest, with his calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. angering Democrats, and his new openness to halting some gun sales leaving his fellow Republicans scratching their heads.
The New York billionaire marveled at his “remarkable journey” Wednesday — but uncharacteristically blasted recent “phony” polling, which has shown his brash style playing badly with voters, costing him support in what appears to be a winnable election.
Indeed, negative impressions of Mr. Trump are on the rise, and some of the latest polling shows likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton opening a double-digit lead over him — putting a dent in the momentum that he carried out of his impressive victory in the GOP primary.
“Donald Trump has turned conventional political wisdom on its head over the course of the past year, confounding critics along the way, but the question is whether it is all catching up to him,” said Charlie Gerow, a GOP political strategist.
For his part, Mr. Trump said Wednesday his populist message and lean campaign can still carry him to victory over Mrs. Clinton even as he struggled to convince fellow Republicans that he has the tools and temperament to capture the White House in the fall election.
“So now they are saying she has built a massive team, she has got almost 900 people, she is spending money and Trump has 73 people. But you know we are doing very well,” Mr. Trump said. “Watch what the end result is. Watch what the end result is.”
Just as he did to members of both parties after he descended the escalator in Trump Tower a year ago, he delivered a withering assault on Mrs. Clinton, criticizing “Crooked Hillary” for running a foundation that he said took “millions of dollars” from countries that enslave women and murder gays.
He also honed his attack on Mrs. Clinton’s national security credentials in the wake of this weekend’s shooting rampage in Florida, saying the country’s former top diplomat wants to welcome refugees from terrorist-connected areas.
“Now she wants to allow them to come into our country pretty much unvetted,” Mr. Trump said. “As to whether they assimilate or not, you make the decision. But assimilation has not exactly been” going well.
The candidate also predicted that skeptical voters will come to embrace his call for a freeze on admitting Muslims to the U.S.
The Trump campaign’s one-year milestone coincides with a Washington Post-ABC News poll that shows Mr. Trump’s negative rating has climbed to 70 percent from 60 percent last month, marking the highest negative rating of the 2016 campaign season.
A Bloomberg Politics national poll released this week showed Mrs. Clinton has opened up a 12 percentage-point lead over Mr. Trump, and that more than half of the respondents said they could “never” support him.
Mr. Gerow said Mr. Trump has time to recover in the race, but said he must recognize that the race has shifted to a larger general election audience.
“Some folks have a hard time distinguishing between the fact that when they are speaking to the adoring throng, they are also speaking to a much broader audience at home that are increasingly tuning in with an increasingly critical and sometimes skeptical eye,” he said.
Even some of his admirers winced earlier this month when Mr. Trump attacked an Indiana-born federal judge, accusing him of bias because of his Mexican heritage. The judge is hearing a challenge lodged by students at Trump University, who argue the program was a fraud.
Mr. Trump on Wednesday raised GOP eyebrows again when he announced on Twitter that he plans to talk to the National Rifle Association about supporting a ban on people on the federal no-fly purchasing guns.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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