8 reasons we need to start preparing for President Trump

Trump has been the driving force behind record-setting Republican turnout, while Democratic turnout has been flat. The GOP has set turnout records in every state, except for Vermont.

In Alabama alone, nearly 200,000 more Republicans voted on Super Tuesday than in 2008. “What Trump is doing is he’s able to attract more voters to turn out,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who backs Marco Rubio.

Hillary and Bill Clinton are ripe targets for Trump, who has revealed an uncanny ability to shred his opponents by brutally defining them. He blew apart former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as “low-energy” and helped explode Ben Carson’s feel-good biography.

So far, Trump has confined his comments about Hillary Clinton mostly to assumptions she may not be allowed to run because of her email scandal — a dubious claim — and saying she lacks the stamina for the job.

But once he gets her in his sights, he can drill down on the email controversy, hit her on Libya and the Iraq war, and go after any number of flip-flops she has made throughout the campaign.

Taking heat from the left, Trump has already laid the groundwork for a pivot to the center — signaling he might knock two feet off his proposed Mexican border wall, and delivering a lengthy defense of Planned Parenthood on Tuesday.

Once he sews up the nomination, he can go back to the center and appeal to more pocketbook issues, while easing off immigration and more radioactive positions.

Trump’s hard-core supporters have demonstrated they’ll stick with him through just about anything. Exit polls show they were among the earliest to decide their votes.

They’ve embraced Trump’s most controversial proposals, including a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Trump’s main demographic strength — working-class men and white voters — matches up well against one of Hillary Clinton’s chief weaknesses. He could go after Clinton in must-win Ohio, where “Trump’s rhetoric appeals to those blue-collar Democrats,” said GOP strategist Brian Walsh.

“Hell, her Super Tuesday victory speech sounded more like William Jennings Bryan than a Clinton,” said conservative Democratic consultant Dave “Mudcat” Saunders. “Her insurmountable hurdle is populist rhetoric that won’t work for her in the general [election]. It will only provide Trump a path to blister her.”

The GOP may look as if it’s about to rip itself apart — although a truce now looks possible — but Democrats are undergoing their own ideological split.

Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Clinton’s corporate speeches to Goldman Sachs have damaged her brand and driven down her trust rating in public polls. She’ll need to mend fences with Sanders and land the endorsement of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but might get blocked from making a rapid pivot to the center after nailing down the nomination.

Clinton is most vulnerable at her base, while Trump repeatedly jokes that he could “shoot somebody and not lose voters.”

Republican elites may despise him, but Trump has shown he can thrive without them.

And despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s warning that GOP candidates will drop Trump like a “hot rock,” most Republicans will have a vested interest in talking up their party’s nominee once he’s chosen.

He harangues the press and threatens to sue reporters, but a Trump nomination would be the best thing to happen to the media, and that would play to his benefit.

His freewheeling style and ability to dominate coverage will force Clinton out of her prepackaged comfort zone, which will lead to inevitable slip-ups.

On Tuesday, she already took her first tentative step, addressing traveling reporters for the first time in 87 days.