MSNBC analyst wonders how ‘every poll’ missed the Trump tide

MSNBC Contributor Maria Teresa Kumar asked, “What haven’t we done?” as she admitted that “every poll” missed the “tide” toward the former president Donald Trump at the elections.

Teresa Kumaralso the CEO of Voto Latino, said on MSNBC on Wednesday that the Democrats’ message was not reaching working-class Americans, with Trump winning with a “populist” message based on the economy. Kumar blasted Trump for his views on climate change and his promise to do so Robert F. Kennedy Jr. somewhere in his administration to deal with “health.”

Kumar said:

When Trump was elected the first time in 2016, we were all kind of on pins and needles saying, he’s not going to do what he said he was going to do, and then he went ahead and did exactly what he was going to do. When I came in today, I have to say it was more of a recognition that we need to have better conversations with the country about what this means, because the implications are not just for the most marginalized, but also abroad. There’s a realignment happening that I don’t know if people will fully understand. We can look at how he doesn’t believe in climate change. These are really big issues that will impact not only us here in the United States, but also the rest of the world. He doesn’t believe in vaccines when he sees Kennedy Jr. stops there.

She added that Kennedy could “decimate” vaccination levels around the world. Kennedy told NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard in an earlier interview on Wednesday that he has no plans to withdraw vaccines from the market, whatever role he takes on.

Kumar conceded that Trump’s message was getting through to working-class people of different races, and she wondered how the polls had failed to see the positive shifts toward Trump among Latino voters and others:

What haven’t we done? What have we missed? Every poll missed this tide of the American public. I think when we talk about where we are, there’s a new realignment of a coalition of people who aren’t making it. You have huge numbers of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and they’re not getting the economic relief to feel like tomorrow they’re going to be better off than their parents. Look at the Latino community: 70% of that community works in construction, farm labor, or in the hospitality industry. Those are not union jobs. They’re trying to say, you’re telling me I should care about X, but what I have to figure out is, how do I pay the rent? And Trump, whether you like him or not, he had that populist message, while the Democrats actually have material policies for them, that populist message didn’t cut through.

View above via MSNBC.

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