Newsletter: Politics: Republicans unify, race tightens

One key question about the 2016 election got answered this week, another critical one remains pending.

The answered question: Are Republicans able to unify behind Donald Trump? Yes, they can. The percentage of GOP voters with an unfavorable impression of Trump has dropped sharply since he became the party’s presumptive nominee, and the share of Republicans who say they will vote for him has risen, several recent polls show.

Unanswered yet: Can voters who typically back a Democrat similarly unify behind Hillary Clinton?

Good afternoon, I’m David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

THE RACE TIGHTENS

Trump hasn’t won over all those who backed other candidates during the GOP primaries. Some groups remain particularly disenchanted, notably suburban moderates, many of whom backed Sen. Marco Rubio during the primaries. Lisa Mascaro did an excellent portrait of those moderate GOP voters, who could be a key weak spot for Trump in the fall.

Those voters, however, are the exceptions. In the main, Trump has gained ground within his party in the last two weeks, and polls of the November matchup with Clinton have tightened as a result.

The former secretary of State led Trump by 3 points in the most recent NBC/SurveyMonkey national poll, to cite one example. In mid-April, she had an 8-point lead in that survey. In a New York Times/CBS poll released Thursday evening, she led by 6 points, last month’s New York Times/CBS survey had her ahead by 10.

An average of recent polls shows Clinton’s lead at about 2 points, down from about 10 a month ago. For comparison, President Obama defeated Mitt Romney by roughly 4 points in 2012.

The big question mark now is whether voters on the Democratic side will unify in the next few weeks the way Republicans have begun to. If backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders swing into formation behind Clinton after the final states hold their primaries on June 7, look for her lead to widen again. If not, Trump will have the opportunity to create a true horse race.

Clinton’s problem is not really with Democrats — unlike Trump, she has always been fairly popular within her own party. Instead, her difficulty lies primarily with Democratic-leaning independents, many of whom have voted for Sanders.

People often think of independents as voters who occupy the center of the political spectrum — somewhere between Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right. But in truth, independents cover a much wider range of ideologies.

Many Republican-leaning independents stand significantly further to the right than the average Republican; their ranks swelled when significant numbers of conservatives stopped identifying as Republicans during the final years of the George W. Bush administration. Trump does well among them.

Democratic-leaning independents include a significant number of voters who are further left than the average Democrat, and Clinton has a notable problem with them. Many hold a strongly unfavorable opinion of her. Winning over those voters will determine whether this year’s election ends up a tight race or one in which Clinton holds a compelling advantage.

WHAT DIDN’T STAY IN VEGAS

Right now, Sanders’ campaign blocks Clinton from being able to reach those left-leaning independent voters. So long as the Vermont senator continues to run powerfully against her, their loyalty remains his. And while Sanders has no realistic chance of winning the nomination, the campaign grew more intense this week, not less.

The flashpoint was the Democratic state convention last weekend in Las Vegas, where a group of Sanders supporters shouted down Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, threw chairs and, afterward, made threats against the state party chair — all over the allocation of at most two delegates from a caucus that Clinton won in February.

As Kate Linthicum reported, the Las Vegas brawl set Sanders against some of the party’s most powerful figures, led by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who largely controls his home state’s Democratic party.

Sanders took three days to condemn the violence, and even then, he did so in cursory fashion, blaming the problems on the Nevada Democrats. The exchanges, Cathy Decker wrote, showed how much Sanders’ campaign has become a race against the Democratic Party as an institution — an ominous note for those looking for party unity.

All that could change, of course, once the primaries end. As Mark Z. Barabak set out, the final results are not in doubt — Clinton needs to win only about one in eight remaining delegates to clinch the nomination.

As the remaining primaries play out, we’ll continue to bring you all the results and analyses on Trail Guide and on our Politics page.

And you can keep watch on the delegates in both parties with our Delegate Tracker, which shows where each candidate stands and where each has won support.

Once the voting ends, parties traditionally start looking for bridges between their competing factions. One potential bridge builder would be Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Noah Bierman took a close look at Warren’s position and the issue on the minds of many Democrats: What does Warren want?

TRUMP SEEKS TO REASSURE THE PARTY HE HAS CAPTURED

Trump took several steps to consolidate his position within the GOP this week.

He signed a joint fundraising agreement with the party, which will enable a big donor to give as much as $783,400 to the campaign this year.

(Clinton and the Democratic National Committee set up a similar arrangement, and because they started last year, donors can give up to $1.1 million between 2015 and 2016. The Democrats have begun using that money to set up coordinated campaigns in several presidential battleground states that also feature contested Senate races.)

Trump also expanded the campaign role of Paul Manafort, the longtime GOP operative and lobbyist whom he brought on board last month when his campaign was struggling.

And he released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. As David Savage wrote, the list aimed to reassure conservative voters, but there’s reason to question whether Trump was really committed to — or even familiar with — the judges he named. Within hours, Trump was backing away from the specific names.

As those moves have unspooled, the #NeverTrump movement has faded to a remnant. Some still cherish the hope of a third-party alternative, but, as Barabak explained, the third-party option is pretty much a non-starter.

Even among Republicans who say they will vote for him, some parts of Trump’s platform draw dissent. For example, Melanie Mason reported, his sharp rhetoric against international trade looks very different from the towns along the California border with Mexico and troubles some business leaders who typically support the GOP.

WHAT WE’RE READING

The place where #NeverTrump remains strongest is among the GOP’s foreign policy elite, many of whom see the party’s nominee as not only unqualified, but dangerous. Trump has repudiated positions that the foreign policy establishment has espoused for a generation.

In Politico, Julia Ioffe took an excellent look at the quandary facing Republican foreign policy professionals, who find themselves adrift, unwanted by either party.

Earlier in this edition, I talked about Clinton’s problems with left-leaning independents, who have supported Sanders. For a deeper dive into the effect of independents on the race, check out a story by Nate Silver at 538.

LOGISTICS

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That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.