Hillary Clinton has an 11 point lead over Donald Trump, 46-35, according to today’s Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll. Trump also trails Clinton in the latest Fox News and Rasmussen surveys, albeit by considerably smaller margins.
Dan McLaughlin of NRO notes that the Reuters/Ispos poll has been Trump’s favorite throughout the campaign season. The tycoon and his supporters repeated tweeted and touted its results during the primaries and when, not long after Trump delivered his knockout blow in Indiana, he surged into a very slight lead in the Reuters/Ispos survey. I doubt that Trump will be tweeting this latest result.
What happened? Did Mexicans buy out Reuters? Or is the public already wearying of Trump?
Trump calls Mitt Romney a “choke artist” because he couldn’t defeat Barack Obama. What will that make Trump if he can’t defeat Hillary Clinton, a weaker candidate running without the advantage of being the incumbent?
Speaking of Romney, Harry Enten of FiveThrityEight points out that, according to the polls, Trump has the same edge over his opponent with white voters that Romney enjoyed in 2012 — 17 points. This margin wasn’t sufficient to elect Romney and it almost surely won’t be sufficient to elect Trump.
Can Trump expand his edge with white voters to beyond 20 points, as he almost very probably must do to win? Possibly.
But women make up at least half of the white vote. Trump only runs about even with Clinton among white women.
Lots of whites have college degrees. Trump only runs about even with Clinton among whites with a college degree.
They say that a lot can change between now and the election, and so it can. But I’m pretty sure Trump won’t change.
So it seems unlikely that he will suddenly become a hit among white women and whites with a college degree. And unless he does, the math is likely to consign him to choke artist status.
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