CNN’s Dana Bash: NC election shows Trump, Republicans are building ‘unbelievably huge’ war chest to drive rural voter turnout

CNN’s Dana Bash said Wednesday that the special congressional election in North Carolina shows that President Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) have been building “an unbelievably huge war chest” in an effort to maximize rural voter turnout in 2020.

“If that is a swing district, a district that has been held by a Republican since 1963, show me a safe district,” Bash, the network’s chief political correspondent, noted on “New Day,” referring to Tuesday’s special election in North Carolina, where Republican Dan Bishop narrowly defeated Democrat Dan McCready in a district that has voted Republican since 1963.

{mosads}”Yes. A win is a win. This is another red flashing warning sign about the suburbs and the people who live in the suburbs, because this is largely suburban, not entirely, largely suburban … and what this means for President Trump going forward,” Bash said.

“New Day” anchor John Berman later asked Bash why “Democrats have shown no signs of being able to break through in those rural areas” where Trump and Republicans perform exceptionally well.

“It tells us that the unbelievably huge war chest that the Trump campaign and the RNC have been building while the Democrats fight among themselves is going to be used, and already is starting to be used, to get every single one of those rural voters out,” Bash explained. “The president is the president because people came out to vote in places in the rural areas of North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan who hadn’t voted in some time. And if they did vote, probably they voted for a Democrat before.

“The machine that they’re building to identify those voters, get them out, is going to be enormous,” she added.

Trump, who beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 12 points in the North Carolina district in 2016, held a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., on Tuesday night in an effort to push Bishop over the finish line.

The turnout for the North Carolina special election, like most special elections, was exceptionally lower than elections typically held in November.