There is no denying that Ivanka Trump is one of her father's most useful weapons. The first daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump has often attempted to soften his image, providing a more palatable packaging to the extreme ideas coming out of the White House. While many liberals' misplaced hopes that she would be a "moderating force" have not panned out, the Ivanka brand undeniably still carries weight.
A new poll by Firehouse Strategies and 0ptimus found that in three key states in the 2020 presidential election — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — Ivanka has a higher net favorability among potential general election voters than President Trump. The poll found Ivanka's favorability ratings were +3 to her father's -3 in Pennsylvania, +1 to his -5 in Michigan, and -4 to his -7 in Wisconsin.
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This means we can expect Ivanka to be deployed as her father's surrogate once again throughout the 2020 presidential election. Although he's pretty much been campaigning since the moment he entered the Oval Office, President Trump officially launched his reelection bid on Monday at a rally in Florida. He broke out his 2016 playbook — with a new "Keep America Great" slogan — and Ivanka was there, head-to-toe in white, supporting him.
It was an image we've seen over and over again, going all the way back to the 2016 Republican National Convention, when she took the stage dressed sensibly in millennial pink and channeling the traditional image of femininity. In her speech, she softened her father's image with praise such as, "He taught us that there’s nothing that we cannot accomplish, if we marry vision and passion with an enduring work ethic" and calling him "color blind and gender neutral."
Expect that same approach in the coming year, while her father engages in the same inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation that got him into the White House in 2016.