Photo credit: ABC/ Ida Mae Astute (CC-By-ND 2.0)
I wrote yesterday about how Donald Trump has gone off the rails, and it has primarily been of his own making.
Speaker Paul Ryan in an interview with a local Wisconsin radio station highlights the problem, and Iāve got to say heās right on the money.
āWe just came out our convention, and yeah heās had a pretty strange run since the convention,ā he told Jerry Bader of Wisconsin local radio station WTAQ in a Thursday interview. āYou would think you oughta be focusing on Hillary Clinton, on all of her deficiencies. She is such a weak candidate that one would think weād be on offense against Hillary Clinton, and it is distressing that thatās not what weāre talking about these days.ā
(HT to Amber Phillips of The Fix for the Ryan quote)
Hillary Clinton is incredibly beatable. I just highlighted her extreme position on abortion yesterday and taxes this morning. Couple that with her dismal approval rating a typical Republican candidate should be leading at this point, but itās Trump we are dealing with.
It was clear Clinton got a bump after the Democratic National Convention. Now it looks like a full blown surge.
- The latest Fox News poll shows Clinton with a 10 point lead. Iām waiting to hear Trump supporters call that poll skewed.
- Heās down by 17 points in New Hampshire according to the latest WBUR/MassINC poll.
- Clinton has a 9 point lead in Michigan in the last poll taken there.
- Franklin & Marshall has Clinton up by 11 points in Pennsylvania. She has opened up an 8 point Real Clear Politics average of polls in that state.
- Suffolk University has Clinton leading in Florida by 4 points. She now leads in a Real Clear Politics average of polls in that state. In my opinion Florida is a must win state for Trump.
- The LA Times/USC poll now shows Clinton with a one point lead. That poll was the only poll favorable last week for Trump after the DNC concluded.
- The Reuters/Ipsos Poll last week had Clinton and Trump tied in a 4-way race with Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. This week she leads by 4 points. The only solace Trump has with this poll is that her lead drops by 1 point from last week in a head to head match-up. The only problem is that they donāt have a head to head match up.
- Et tu Rassmussen? Rassmussen which has been friendly to Trump shows he trails Clinton by 4 points in a 4-way match-up. I am not sure why they switched to polling a 4-way race (even though all pollsters should at this point) before theyāve only polled head to head. Their last head to head poll last week showed Clinton with a 1 point lead.
I donāt see the bleeding stopping anytime soon.
Addendum: Just a note to Trump supportersā¦ You can not reasonably tout polls that are good for your candidate and then when they go bad say theyāre skewed. As Iāve said before, polls are a snapshot of where a campaign is at right now. Trump is on a downward slide, but that doesnāt mean circumstances, a Clinton misstep, debates, etc. canāt turn things around. At this moment I donāt see it happening. Another Wikileaks dump or an FBI investigation of Clinton into whether she perjured herself before Congress could turn this race up on its head though. Your candidate isnāt giving me much confidence that it will be turned around based on what his campaign does though.