How the Khan Feud Is Impacting Donald Trump’s Support
While big names in the Republican Party may be trying to distance themselves from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, it appears the very public argument between the candidate and the Gold Star family of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan has done little to dent his grassroots support.
As the Washington Times reported on Wednesday:
Mr. Trump drew a huge crowd to a rally Tuesday in the Virginia suburbs of Washington—and also attracted a sizable number of protesters dressed in traditional Muslim clothes, who said he’s gone too far in attacking their religion.
Steve Meyer, 52, echoed the views expressed by many Trump supporters at the rally when he defended Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter and blamed the news media for creating the feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani-born parents of a decorated Muslim U.S. soldier killed in Iraq who are speaking out against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Meyer, an engineer in Ashburn, also lashed out at Republican leaders who have sided with the Khans.
“To be honest, they are the old guard and part of the reason that Trump is seeing success,” he said. “We are tired of the Republican establishment sitting back and not doing anything except going along with the liberal agenda. We are also tired of the media criticizing our nominee while defending the Democrat nominee.”
Polling seems to suggest Trump is still holding steady with his core supporters, as well. A few individual polls even suggest he may be continuing to build on the lead he grabbed shortly after the Republican National Convention last month.
The current RealClearPolitics polling averages have Trump trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points with a margin of error of 3.5 points. In a four-way race that includes Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, that lead is trimmed to 4.4 points.
