Ousted White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon spoke at the annual Values Voter Summit on Saturday, declaring his conviction that President Trump, who spoke at the summit Friday, will win a second term by a landslide in 2020.
"The populist, nationalist, conservative revolt that's going on, that drove Donald Trump to victory ... that will drive 15 candidates to victory in 2018" will continue unabated, Bannon argued. "I hate to break it Graydon Carter and the good folks at Vanity Fair," he continued, "but yes, President Trump is not only going to finish this term, he's going to win with 400 electoral votes in 2020."
The Vanity Fair reference was an allusion to the magazine's recent report, citing an unnamed source, that "Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term." Carter is Vanity Fair's outgoing editor.
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A 400-vote win is not historically inconceivable: 14 presidential elections have seen the winner take 400 or more electoral votes. Ronald Reagan won with 525 electoral votes, the largest count ever, in 1984; and George Washington received all possible votes in both of his elections (though the total number of electors was much lower then because there were fewer states). However, such a win is deeply implausible if Trump's approval ratings remain in the mid-30s.
Watch an excerpt of Bannon's remarks below. Bonnie Kristian
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