Donald Trump's poll numbers have been
dropping since late May, when he took the lead against Hillary Clinton for the first time, and could drop even more following his response to last weekend's shootings in Orlando, GOP strategist Karl Rove said Friday.
"They should work to Trump's advantage, because Trump has consistently throughout this campaign had an advantage in polling on the question of who'd be better on terrorism," Rove told Fox News' Bill Hemmer on the
"America's Newsroom" program. "But he led with his jaw on this one, by emphasizing the ban on Muslims."
Meanwhile, he said, a Gallup Poll last December showed that Americans are more in favor of modifying the nation's visa waiver program to stop people from entering the country from dangerous parts of the world, rather than enacting a wholesale ban on Muslims.
And, said Rove, Clinton's numbers have only been rising since late May, when Trump's numbers started to drop, and according to Real Clear Politics, she now holds a national lead of just under six points.
Rove also discussed his Thursday
opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, in which he disagrees with Trump's contention that he has not had to spend as much money as other candidates because he gets "so many invitations to be on television."
So far, that system has worked, Rove writes, but as the race starts to pivot toward the general election, Clinton's ad buys on popular network shows will reach far more viewers than Trump's appearances on cable talk shows.
For example, he writes, 314,000 could see see a Clinton ad during "60 Minutes" on Sunday alone, according to Nielsen ratings, but he'd reach about 82,000 for a segment on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor."
Further, he writes, Clinton's ads will present targeted messages, such as a factual ad on Trump's bankruptcies on "60 Minutes" and a soft-focus ad for Clinton, featuring a single mother, on "Dancing with the Stars."
"Mr. Trump’s interview appearances, on the other hand, tend to look alike, and his message could be muted by the host’s questions," Rove writes.
He also notes in his article that the increased ads from Clinton's super PAC could be responsible for Trump's declining poll numbers, and said he would be better off combining free media interviews with ads.
Rove told Hemmer Friday that earlier this week, when Trump was to speak, he "apparently didn't sell the press in advance that he was going to say something new," and the cable news stations switched to Clinton when she came on.
"That is something that would not have happened before," said Rove. "We ought to expect that when it comes to cable and network news there's going to be a greater parity in the amount of coverage that we've seen before."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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