With six days to go, Donald Trump has never been in a better position in a general election.
That doesn’t mean he’s inevitably going to win (it’s a margin-of-error race), or that it was a good idea for Republicans to nominate him; presumably, another candidate without his baggage and taste for needless controversy would be doing better.
But after two impeachments, a reelection defeat, the disgrace of January 6, multiple indictments, a felony conviction, and much else besides, Trump has gained strength rather than shed it.
He has never performed this well in major polls against a Democratic nominee.
In 2016, he trailed Hillary Clinton in every national poll except those from the L.A. Times, which consistently had him ahead (erroneously), and Gravis, which had them tied. The race tightened toward the end, but even in the final days there were polls that still had Clinton ahead by five or six points. A couple of weeks out, she was leading by ten or more in some surveys.
In the final months of 2020, Biden was beating Trump in every poll except one rogue Rasmussen poll that had Trump (erroneously) up one.
In recent weeks, Trump has led in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and CNBC polls by three, two, and two points, respectively — not world-beating numbers, but better than his performance in 2016 or 2020. (He was also consistently ahead of Joe Biden in polling before the incumbent dropped out.)
Starting from a low level, Trump is more popular than he’s ever been.
He ended the 2016 campaign with a minus-21 favorability rating in the RealClearPolitics average — 58.5 unfavorable and only 37.5 favorable. A Gallup poll in the final stretch had him at 62 percent unfavorable and 35 percent favorable.
In October 2020, most polling had his favorability underwater by double digits.
Now, in the RCP average, he’s down six points. The 538 average has him lower, at minus-8.4 points, but he was down 17 as of early July. Emerson College has his favorable/unfavorable ratings at 49 percent/51 percent. New York Times/Siena has him at 48/50, up from 43/54 in early July. For the first time, Gallup has Trump above 50 on its scale of favorability.
This isn’t Rudy-after-9/11-levels of popularity; in fact, ahem, technically it isn’t popularity at all. But for the first time in any of his races, Trump is comparable in favorability to his opponent: Harris is about at the same place he is: underwater by 3.1 points in the RCP average.
Meantime, Trump’s coalition has been getting broader. There is little doubt that he will over-perform among Latinos and may well make notable gains among African-American men.
Now, there is no “new” Trump. There hasn’t been a new tone or new mode of behavior that accounts for these changes in his favor. Although his campaign has been relatively well run, Trump’s strength is overwhelmingly the product of the failures of the Biden administration, which make Trump’s presidency look better in retrospect, and of the weaknesses of Kamala Harris. His favorability did tick up measurably after the first assassination attempt, though, and hasn’t come back down; that must be based on sympathy for him and admiration for how he handled the attempt on his life.
Trump’s current position is one reason his supporters are so optimistic — if he won in 2016 in a weaker condition, why wouldn’t he win this time? But he easily could still fall short. If he is at his peak popularity and best spot ever in general-election polling and still loses to a flawed Democratic nominee, it’s going to be even more personally and politically devastating.
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