Trump’s Poll Numbers Plummet

A plunge. A nosedive. A drop. A fall. A rapid descent. Whatever term you want to use, Donald Trump’s poll numbers have been in a free fall ever since the end of the Democratic National Convention and Hillary Clinton is now the clear front-runner in the race for the Oval Office. It’s typical for a presidential nominee to get a polling bump after their convention but this isn’t just a bounce for Clinton, it’s a springboard. Between the normal positive vibes that come out of a convention, Secretary Clinton has been the beneficiary of a self-destructive week by the bombastic billionaire.

Between his silly spat with the family of a deceased Muslim soldier (a captain) in the U.S. Army, the acceptance of a Purple Heart that he didn’t earn, talking about a non-existent video of the Obama Administration’s alleged cash for hostages deal, his non-endorsement of Senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte and his tongue in cheek “I’m not there yet” non-endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump picked the worst possible week to have a horrible week.

As I’ve written many times, I am not convinced that Trump really wants the job of the presidency and every time he goes off the rails, I look at it as an unconscious act of self-sabotage. It’s obvious that he really loves running for president. He clearly loves the adulation that he gets from his rallies. As a teetotaler, Trump gets his buzz from the rallies. But part of his stump speech has always been how well he’s doing, how he’s winning in the polls. Right now, there’s no way to sugar coat how the polls look for him.

Anyway, here’s the carnage, a list of eight national polls taken in the days following the Democratic convention. I’ve included the numbers (where relevant) of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein.

(If you subscribe to this blog by getting an emailed version of the next, you’ll need to visit the site to see the tables)

By comparison, there was not one single week in 2008 when Barack Obama had a 7-point lead in the average of polls over Mitt Romney. In 2008, it was only after the economy collapsed that Obama started showing these kind of numbers against John McCain.

If you look at individual swing states, it’s just as bleak for The Donald.

A couple of thoughts on these state polls:

• They’re not all swing states. Georgia has been a reliably Republican state for two decades but is now a swing state that might be poached by Clinton. It’s really tight but this is an average of three different polls so the number is real. In an electoral college map that inherently favors the Democratic candidate, a loss of 16 electoral votes in the Peach State would be fatal for Trump.
• Part of the Trump campaign strategy has been to target Midwestern states that have high numbers of white, blue collar, non-college educated workers (or non-workers because they can’t find a job). Most people consider Michigan an unreachable goal but Pennsylvania (with it’s 20 electoral votes) is considered a really important flip if Trump is to prevail. Hillary is up by 8 points in the Keystone State (also an average of 3 polls). That’s really bad news for The Donald.
• It’s only 4 electoral college votes, but for Trump to be down by 15 in New Hampshire has to be disheartening because that’s where he scored his first big win in the primary season.
• There’s no poll for Ohio taken post-DNC. Needless to say, this is a biggie and Trump is not helped by the lack of support from the popular sitting Governor John Kasich.

Now let’s unpack some of the nitty gritty details in some of two of these polls, the ones from Fox and CNN:

• With both candidates, both CNN and Fox News asked their respondents if their choice was to support their chosen candidate or if their choice was in opposition to the other candidate. In the CNN poll, 58% of Clinton supporters said they were supporting their candidate while 41% said their primary motivation was to oppose Trump. For Trump supporters, only 47% said that their vote was to support him and 50% cited opposition to Hillary as their reason. The Fox poll’s numbers were similarly skewed. The point is that there are a LOT of Republicans who are supporting the red-haired billionaire because they dislike Clinton. When it comes time to pull the lever, voting for a candidate is always a bigger motivator to show up than voting against.
• In the Fox poll, the folks were asked about the “qualifications” of each of the candidates. 65% felt that Hillary was qualified compared to 43% for The Donald. Clearly, Clinton has the resume to be president and clearly Trump does not.
• Both candidates are considered “honest and trustworthy” by barely a third of those polled, which does highlight the “lesser of two evils” choice that we’re all subjected to.
• When asked in the Fox poll whether our wonderful choices had the “right temperament” to serve effectively as president, 64% said “yes” with respect to Hillary with only 37% saying “yes” for Trump. Count me as a “no” for both.
• CNN posed this question: would “candidate X be someone you would be proud to have as president.” For Clinton, 45% said yes; only 30% responded in the affirmative for Trump. Count me as an emphatic “NO” for both.
• CNN’s poll shows Trump with a 53%-to-39% lead among white voters but is getting trounced 80%-to-12% by non-white voters.
• We all know this already, but Trump’s base is among white non-college educated voters: he wins 59%-to-33% in this group (according CNN) but loses 53%-to-40% among white college graduates.

Clearly Trump is aware of the bad week he’s had. He’s not talking about the polls but he’s obviously gotten the memo that he needs to be a more traditional candidate. So he gave a speech in Green Bay tonight in which he officially endorsed Ryan, McCain and Ayotte. It was the kind of speech that Republicans are yearning to see more often.

Still, the damage has been done and the question now is this: is it over? Every political instinct in my body says “yes,” that this was obvious from the beginning that Donald Trump would have not chance to be elected president. We’re now in the political hinterland of August and the Olympics will be dominating the airwaves for a few weeks. The Clinton campaign has spent $5.5 million in advertising to run during the international showcase compared to zero for the Trump campaign. This can only help her. Still, we’ve all learned not to underestimate Donald Trump. There are three things that could happen which could tilt the scales back towards the billionaire businessman:

1. An unexpectedly good debate performance. To me, this is the biggest one. Everyone will expect Secretary Clinton to clean Trump’s clock on the debate stage. If he over-performs the low expectations, if he shows that he actually does have a clue, it could re-set the race. Incidentally, Trump has complained that the supposedly non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates has rigged them against him by scheduling the first two of the three debates at the same time as nationally televised prime time NFL games. The charge is silly in one sense, because the schedule was set up last fall, long before the primary voting began and anyone knew that Trump would be the nominee. However, I think it’s fair to say that the commission may have tilted the schedule to help Secretary Clinton, who everyone expected to be the Democratic nominee. By scheduling the debates against pro football games, the natural result is to boost the proportion of viewers who are women and reduce the proportion who are men. With the prospect of the first female nominee for president, is it really preposterous to suggest that the commission might have attempted to tilt the scales in her favor? A quick look at the list of the membership of the allegedly non-partisan commission has a preponderance of left-leaning people.
2. The intervention of national or world events. Current events have an impact on every presidential election. People forget that John McCain was running virtually neck and neck with President Obama in 2008. But then the economy crashed and Obama started talking about the Bush-McCain economy and it was over. Four years ago, Mitt Romney was running neck and neck with Obama but then Hurricane Sandy struck, one week before the election. Obama got the photo ops with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Romney lost a crucial week. In 2016, if there is another economic crash, a spate of terrorist attacks or another foreign event that can be linked to Clinton’s term as Secretary of State, it could accrue to the outsider’s benefit.
3. Another WikiLeaks release: just before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks released a trove of DNC emails that showed the party members chatting about how to tilt the scales towards Clinton and away from Bernie Sanders. The group’s editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, has gone on the record saying that he does not want Clinton to be president. What if his organization has unreleased Clinton emails that were deleted and not recovered by the FBI? And what if there a smoking gun in those emails? If there’s a bombshell that gets released a week before the election, it could shift the trajectory of the race dramatically.

Finally, I’m going to re-visit my own thoughts about who I’ll be voting for this November. I’ve supported or voted Republican since 1980 when I was 13 years old and Reagan beat Carter. I have never been so disappointed with the nominee that my chosen party has selected. Using the word disappointment is sugar coating it. When Kasich and Ted Cruz dropped out of the race after Trump’s big win in Indiana, I laid out five things that I wanted to see if I was going to jump onto the Trump train. Let’s see how he’s doing:

1. Pick a great Vice-President. I’ll give Trump a B+ with the selection of Mike Pence. He’s a solid guy and a good political pick (to help Trump woo conservatives). He’s taking a massive political risk: if Trump loses badly, his political career will go down with the Trump-tanic.
2. Display a greater knowledge of policy. Trump gets an F on this. I have seen no evidence that he’s displayed the intellectual curiosity that a president should have.
3. Win over the majority of Republican lawmakers. Trump gets a C+ on this front. He now has the backing, albeit a tepid backing, of most of the GOP members of the House and Senate. Still, you get the feeling that Trump hasn’t actually earned the support but that those lawmakers are boxed in, fearful that a visibly split party will cost them both the House and Senate in the fall. It’s pretty clear to me that, if and when Trump loses big, they will all throw him under the bus quickly.
4. Stop Tweeting. Of course, we have to put another F on the report card. If he were focusing only on his real target, Secretary Clinton, his Twitter addiction would be fine. But he can’t help trying to settle scores with people (like the Khan family) who are not running against him for president.
5. Release his tax returns. In truth, this is something that I personally really want to see but it’s probably wise for him to not do it so I’ll give him a B for political savvy. It’s obvious that there’s damaging news that would be picked apart if he were to release them now, whether it’s not paying any taxes in years that his businesses lost money or how little he donates to charity, he’s wise to keep them under wraps.

So, as I was three months ago, I remain in the waiting room and not ready to board the Trump train. How are you doing, Gary Johnson?

Thanks for reading.

Chris Bodig