Trump Pivots to the General Election

With polls showing Trump leading by a heavy margin in Indiana, Trump has begun to focus more efforts on the general election contest. At recent rallies in both Carmel and in Indianapolis, he gave speeches articulating his case against Hillary Clinton and even made an effort to appeal to women voters. According to an article in Politico, Trump was quoted saying, “Women are looking for security in our country and they know I’m going to do the best job . . . When they called [Hillary Clinton] on Benghazi she was sleeping, folks.”

Even as Trump begins to focus more on attacking Hillary Clinton, an article in the Associated Press highlights how unprepared Trump might be for a general election fight. According to the article:

The New York businessman has collected little information about tens of millions of voters he needs to turn out in the fall. He's sent few people to battleground states compared with likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, accumulated little if any research on her, and taken no steps to build a network capable of raising the roughly $1 billion needed to run a modern-day general election campaign.

The Trump campaign claims it will utilize the resources offered by the Republican establishment, like the RNC, even as he continues to criticize the party establishment on a daily basis. The RNC has made a concerted effort to expand its footprint after the GOP loss in 2012 by setting up battlegrounds in key states such as Florida and Ohio. According to RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer, "We are so far ahead of where we were . . . Whether it's Trump or someone else, that's going to be a huge advantage."