Donald Trump's big mistake in the primaries is hurting him now...

[Dien Rice]

Trump made a big mistake in the primaries - and he's paying for it now. It was completely preventable.

It's all about good strategy.

I've been watching Donald Trump closely ever since he announced himself to be in the presidential race. I'd been a fan of Trump - I read "The Art of the Deal" and I've praised it many times in this forum. I enjoyed watching The Apprentice for many years too.

Trump did some amazing things during his primary run. One thing he did was use "controversy marketing" to soak up all of the attention. Nobody else could compete in the media! The fact there were so many competitors in the Republican primaries actually helped Trump, I think. Plus, for most of the primaries, his competitors were more intent on attacking each other than attacking him. I think the reason for that was because they didn't take him seriously.

However I think Trump made a strategic error in the primaries, and we're seeing the consequences now.

In a primary, whether it's Republican or Democrat, the candidates generally do not attack each other too strongly. The reason why is they know that those words will come back to hurt the eventual candidate in the general election - and they still want their own party to win.

However, this is Donald Trump's first electoral contest of any kind. He either didn't realize this is how it works, or he didn't care. He attacked his opponents in very fierce ways, with no holding back. For example calling Jeb Bush "low energy" is a way of cutting him down almost totally, and cutting directly at his competency. Or, accusing Ted Cruz of having a father who was somehow associated with the JFK assassination, that's pretty strong stuff.

The reason why that was a mistake by Trump is that others eventually realized that they had to attack Trump very strongly in return, just to survive. We saw this closer to the end of the Primaries especially by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz - and Mitt Romney threw his hand in for good measure.

Of course, we are seeing the result of this now in the general election. Hillary has a video/TV ad which only consists of video of Republicans attacking Trump. However, many of these attacks on Trump were actually responses to Trump having not held back in attacking them.

Trump's very strong attacks in the primary were good for him in the short term when he was in the primaries, but they have come back to hurt him in the general election. I predicted (to myself) that this would happen back then, and I thought it was a strategic mistake for Trump... It's fascinating to me to see it played out as I thought it probably would in the general election...

Strategic early mistakes can hurt you eventually, even if it doesn't hurt you right away (and may even temporarily help you)!

Best wishes,

Dien