Rove was in Canton last weekend promoting his book on William McKinley’s campaign of 1896, which Rove maintains was built on a strategy of reaching out to immigrants and other new voters.

He acknowledged Trump is running a counter-strategy that has kept him at or near the top of the polls among GOP primary candidates. And he argues that many of Trump’s supporters don’t care about his factual accuracy or outrageous statements…

“Because he’s a guy who promises to throw a brick through the plate-glass window and that’s all they care about. Now, a lot of other people do care. About 75 percent of the Republican primary voters care.”

In a series of Tweets this week, Trump intimated that he may start an independent run for the presidency – and noted that more than two-thirds of his supporters in a USA Today poll this week say they’d go with him. 

Rove says there's plenty of time for the GOP race to play out, noting that the 2012 primaries and caucuses were even earlier than this time around.  

LISTEN: Rove on changing races

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“We would have had Herman Cain, and we still had Newt Gingrich to go. And then Rick Santorum wins Iowa and comes from nowhere and it’s not until Feb. 28^th that Mitt Romney finally moves ahead in the polls and maintains his lead. So it’s going to be the end of March, at the earliest, and probably the middle of April before somebody finally settles this contest.”