Donald Trump Faces Key Election ‘Weakness’—Fox News’ Brit Hume

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume said Donald Trump’s election hopes are in jeopardy because even though he has a “solid base” he is “not a majority candidate.”
On Fox News Sunday Hume discussed why Trump, despite leading in polling on a number of key issues including the economy, inflation, and immigration, is still struggling in polls against Vice President Kamala Harris. Hume explained that Trump’s appeal has been consistently limited, rarely expanding beyond his core supporters.
Hume argued that this inability to capture a majority of voters has defined U.S. politics over the last three elections. Trump’s victories and losses have hinged on his ability to mobilize his base, but his appeal has not significantly expanded beyond that group.
“The fact that Biden was doing even as well as he did until the very end,” Hume said, “is a testament to the fact that Donald Trump has a very hard, solid base of support, but it never gets above about 40 to 45 percent, maybe a little more at best.” This ceiling, according to Hume, is a key weakness that could once again shape the outcome of the election and jeopardize the former president’s chances of victory.
“It’s all about one thing, it’s about that,” Hume said. “Donald Trump, no matter how enthusiastic supporters are, nonetheless, is not a majority candidate. He might win, but he’s not a majority candidate.
In the 2016 presidential election, Trump won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, securing only 46.1 percent compared to Hillary Clinton’s 48.2 percent. This narrow victory underscored his reliance on the Electoral College, rather than broad popular support.
In the 2020 election, Trump garnered 46.8 percent of the popular vote, losing both the popular vote and Electoral College to Joe Biden, who received 51.3 percent.
Even in the 2018 midterms, when Trump’s influence was a central issue, Republicans only managed 44.8 percent of the popular vote for the House of Representatives, compared to the Democrats’ 53.4 percent.
Karl Rove, another political commentator on the panel, echoed Hume’s concerns in reply, noting that while Trump has strong numbers on key issues, his tendency to focus on personal grievances rather than policy could hinder his ability to attract undecided voters.
“Well, first of all, he does listen to a lot of people, but the first he listens to is the inner voice, and we see it in these rallies, which are a particularly undisciplined form of communications. Look, think about it, two-thirds of the American people think we’re going in the wrong direction.
“He leads on the issue of who’s better on the economy, who’s better on inflation, who’s better on migration,” Rove said. “That’s all good numbers for him. and yet this race today he’s behind and why is he behind? Because he is making this race about things other than the three big issues in this campaign – the economy, inflation, and immigration.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign for comment via email.