Trump closes gap with Clinton while dissing women, minorities

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reportedly ditched a scheduled interview with a Hispanic journalist because the reporter spoke Spanish even as a new online poll on Monday showed him closing the gap with his presumptive Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the race to the White House.

A new NBC national tracking poll revealed Trump pulling within 3% of Hillary, gaining two points on her over the past week, while he continued to roil the political scene with theatrics involving women and minorities, leaving pundits wondering just how he could win the White House antagonising such large voter constituencies.

The poll, which was conducted online and is not considered reliable, showed six out of 10 Republican voters rooting for Trump to lead the GOP. Clinton led Trump 48-45 this week, narrower than the 49-45 lead she had last week.

Other polls have shown that while Clinton has majority support of women, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and non-whites in general, Trump has majority backing from white males, lending a women vs men, white vs non-white characteristic to the upcoming election.

On Monday, the Trump campaign’s dissing of a Hispanic reporter raised questions as to how many voting blocks — and countries across the world — the Republican candidate can annoy and still have a realistic chance to win.

Marcos Stupenengo, a freelance correspondent working for Mexico’s TV Azteca, was said to be waiting at the Trump Tower in New York for a scheduled interview with Trump when he received a phone call, and began speaking in Spanish. Soon after, Trump’s campaign staff reportedly told him that the interview was cancelled.

This is not the first time Trump has gotten under the skin of the Hispanic media. Last summer, he had Univision’s Jorge Ramos evicted from a press conference following the latter’s aggressive questioning. He also would not answer questions from Telemundo’s Jose Diaz-Balart during an event in a Mexico–Texas border town last year.

All this on top of his proposal to build a wall on the US border with Mexico and getting Mexico to pay for it after calling Mexicans criminals and rapists. Latinos constitute about 10% of the national vote and can affect outcomes in nearly a dozen states, including Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Illinois. They constitute more than 25% vote in Texas and New Mexico.

Trump has tried to gloss over his public antipathy for minorities with theatrics, including tweeting a photo of him with a taco bowl. But even the political party he has hijacked is appalled by it and is calling for him to tone it down. Trump’s response: He has the mandate to be provocative; anything else will be boring.

The poll numbers suggest he may be on to something, although it is going to be a test whether the theatrics can carry him all the way to the White House in a system where he has to win 270 electoral votes through states (more important than the popular vote).