TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — One week after the historic election of businessman and billionaire Donald Trump, a Tampa media consultant can say “I told you so.”
“I just felt something that to me was clear and I had the advantage of having experienced candidates like that early in my career,” said Adam Goodman, who made a call back in June that he caught slack for.
In a column he wrote for The Daily Beast on June 26, 2016, Goodman said, “If Trump is within a few points of Clinton in the polls going into Election Day, he will become President of the United States, leaving experts scrambling for explanations, and pundits grasping for cover, as the story becomes the stuff of political legend.”
Does Goodman have a magic ball where he can see into the future?
No, but he has experience. One particular experience is behind his early prediction of a Trump presidency.
“I had seen this thing believe it or not once in my career 30 odd years ago. I was in Philadelphia when the then-mayor of the city, Frank Rizzo, somewhat Trump-like, was a tough-talking, former tough cop leader running a very tough city at that point. He always, always dramatically under-polled, even in his own polls from where he would end up on Election Day, because it wasn’t considered socially acceptable for people to outwardly embrace Frank Rizzo. But darned if he didn’t always do well on Election Day and I thought the same thing would happen with Donald Trump,” said Goodman.
“They looked at me like I was out of my mind. Even my own family, part of my family was ready to disown me for even predicting this,” said Goodman about his June prediction.
“You couldn’t ignore the 30,000 rallies you couldn’t ignore that this candidate was breaking all the rules, but maybe making a lot of new rules and people were ready to follow along.”
WFLA News Channel 8 asked Goodman what else he could predict about the future.
“I think we are going to see more and more potential for successful movement candidates from both sides. And, I think Donald Trump is going to determine a lot of fortunes moving forward. Usually the new occupant does that. The first measure we will have this year, will take place in places like New Jersey, even in the city of New York where the mayor’s race will be a highly competitive one,” Goodman added.