Trump is No Mystery. There've Been No Surprises.
ByJOSH MARSHALLPublishedMAY 6, 2016, 11:01 AM EDT
Now in the first glow of Trump's nomination, we're hearing all sorts of arguments about how the political magic he pulled in the GOP primaries he'll now bring to bear against Hillary Clinton. He's agile. He's free to change positions whenever he pleases. He just hasn't started in on Hillary yet. The normal rules don't apply to him.
Again, let's look at what the polls suggest.
This isn't Trump's debut with the national electorate. There's been a consistent story over the last ten months: Trump's persona, campaign and policy positions have slowly built up support among Republicans while alienating virtually everyone else. His negatives are extraordinarily high among numerous segments of the electorate - most notably, Hispanics, African-Americans, millennials and women. And he consistently, indeed virtually always, loses head to head match-ups with Hillary Clinton. Indeed, even in Clinton's very weakened state, Clinton has not only maintained her lead over Trump but has slowly but steadily increased that lead from August until today.
We should expect - and we are already seeing - both Clinton's and Trump's net favorability ratings go up over the coming weeks, as party members coalesce around their standard-bearers as drive up approval rates within their won parties. But as it will happen for both there's little reason to believe it will affect their relative standing. Let me reemphasize the point. Polls aren't always right. And you need to know how to interpret them. Ted Cruz was polling fairly well against Hillary Clinton until he started to get a lot of press attention, at which point he started to collapse because everyone hates Ted Cruz once they get to know him.
With Trump and Clinton we're dealing with two candidates who have been the focus of intense media attention for a year. In different ways, they've been in the media spotlight for decades. The polls are telling us a pretty clear story. Trump is very popular with base Republican voters, particularly older and whiter and male ones. Everything he's done to gain that popularity has made him extremely unpopular with almost everyone else. Changing that will be very hard. Polls, if you actually pay attention to them, have predicted this cycle quite successfully. No reason to believe that will change in the general.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-is-no-mystery-there-ve-been-no-surprises
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