Donald Trump has made efforts to dial back his self-destructive antics and thus gain ground in the polls, but it may already be too late.PHOTOGRAPH BY EVAN VUCCI / AP PHOTODonald Trump’s campaign is in reset mode. On Friday, Trump reversed himself and endorsed the reëlection efforts of fellow Republicans Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, and John McCain. He admitted that he hadn’t seen a videoof a U.S. plane unloading four hundred million dollars in Iran. And he
alsowished good luck to the U.S. Olympics team in Brazil. This “New Trump” even lasted into the weekend. Appearing at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday night, he referred extensively to his written notes and restricted his barbs to the media and Hillary Clinton, whom he described as “a dangerous liar.” He didn’t bait any fellow Republicans, query the security guarantees that underpin nato, or disparage the families of fallen U.S. servicemen.
Something had to change. Opining about Trump in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, issued a warning: “If he has more weeks like the dreadful past two, the gap between him and Mrs. Clinton is likely to widen and never close again.” On Monday, when the first polls taken during the Democratic Convention were published, Clinton had an advantage of 3.9 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. On Sunday morning, after a week in which Trump did a good impression of a man out to sabotage his own campaign, another slew of polls showed that Clinton hadextended her lead to seven per cent.
There was particularly bad news for Trump from the battleground states. According to the latest surveys, he’s trailing Clinton by six points in Florida,nine points in Michigan, eleven points in Pennsylvania, and fifteen points in New Hampshire. The polls are also running strongly against him in Virginia and Colorado, two swing states that have been trending toward the Democrats, and there was even a survey a few days ago that showed Clinton ahead in Georgia, which has voted Republican in seven out of the last eight Presidential elections.
Reflecting the latest polling numbers, the betting markets now show Clinton to be a prohibitive favorite. On Sunday morning, at Betfair, on online bookie, the odds of her winning were 34/100. (That means that you would have to bet a hundred dollars to win thirty-four dollars.) But as every bettor knows, some odds-on favorites do end up losing. As recently as Wednesday, July 27th, just eleven days ago, Trump had a narrow lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average. The current figures reflect a post-Convention bounce for Clinton that could be reversed in the coming weeks. As the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walters pointed out, it is only August. Between now and November, much could happen. Clinton’s unfavorable ratings remain high, and there are a lot of angry and alienated voters out there, who might be attracted to an angry, alienating figure like Trump.
Given the fundamentals—the state of the economy, the President’s approval ratings, and the fact that the Democrats are seeking to win a third term in the Oval Office—history suggests that this should be a close election. But Trump’s self-destructive antics, coming on top of what was a pretty effective demolition job on him at the Democratic Convention, have, for now at least, taken the pressure off Clinton. While one hesitates to cite Newt Gingrich as an authority on anything other than zoos and his next book contract, there was a good deal of truth in what he said to the Washington Post a few days ago about Trump and Clinton: “The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable. Trump is helping her to win the election by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”
Theoretically, at least, Trump still has time to reboot, embrace self-discipline, and prepare for the television debates, all the while hoping that another Clinton scandal or a ghastly news event helps him out. But he’ll have to confront a potential mutiny among his fellow Republicans, a gaping disadvantage in field organization, and the widespread belief that he isn’t qualified to be President.
Unless Trump’s polling numbers rebound quickly and dramatically, Congressman Mike Coffman, of Colorado, won’t be the last Republican to run ads distancing himself from Trump. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns reported that G.O.P. Super pacs are already looking for ways to safeguard the party’s grip on the Senate and the House in the case of a Clinton blowout victory over Trump. “The conclusion has become that the guy is incorrigible,” Thomas M. Davis III, a well-connected former Republican congressman from Virginia, told the Times. “He’s going to leave our candidates with no choice but to go their own separate way.”
Trump’s organizational problems have also become critical. Despite the fact that he raised a lot of money in July, his campaign is still sorely lacking in local staff, data analytics, and paid television ads. For a candidate facing a largely hostile media, a lack of ads is particularly problematic. For months now, the Clinton campaign and its allies have been on the air in the swing states. The Trump campaign has been virtually invisible, and this disparity seems likely to continue for a while. Last week, NBC News reported that the Clinton campaign and pro-Clinton groups had reserved about a hundred million dollars in television ads through the fall, while pro-Trump groups had reserved about one million dollars in airtime.
Even if Trump manages to repair his relationship with nervous Republicans and cobble together a national political machine, of sorts, the central question remains: Can he persuade more than forty per cent of American voters that he’s qualified to be President? Ever since he launched his campaign, the Huffington Post has been tracking his favorability ratings and averaging them out. Although his numbers have moved up and down a bit, their message has been remarkably consistent. Since August 1st of last year, Trump’s favorable rating has never risen above thirty-eight per cent, and his unfavorable rating has never dropped below fifty-four per cent. Right now, the favorable figure is 33.7 per cent and the unfavorable figure is 61.3 per cent, for a net score of minus 27.6.
Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable numbers are also upside down—42.5 per cent favorable and 53.6 per cent unfavorable, which amounts to a net score of minus 11.1 per cent. But Clinton isn’t as unpopular as Trump, and she is running well ahead of him on most of the issues, including the ones that the Democrats have been hammering away at in the past few weeks. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that was released on Friday, for example, Clinton was ahead by eleven percentage points on the question of who would make a good Commander-in-Chief, and by eighteen percentage points on who has the ability to handle a crisis.
In sum, Trump faces a credibility crisis, which his antics over the past couple of weeks have heightened. On Saturday, Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “When you act as if you’re insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was nuts, a total flake.” To dispel this impression, it will take more than a couple of days of Trump holding his tongue.
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He also writes a column about politics, economics, and more, for newyorker.com.
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Something had to change. Opining about Trump in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, issued a warning: “If he has more weeks like the dreadful past two, the gap between him and Mrs. Clinton is likely to widen and never close again.” On Monday, when the first polls taken during the Democratic Convention were published, Clinton had an advantage of 3.9 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. On Sunday morning, after a week in which Trump did a good impression of a man out to sabotage his own campaign, another slew of polls showed that Clinton hadextended her lead to seven per cent.
There was particularly bad news for Trump from the battleground states. According to the latest surveys, he’s trailing Clinton by six points in Florida,nine points in Michigan, eleven points in Pennsylvania, and fifteen points in New Hampshire. The polls are also running strongly against him in Virginia and Colorado, two swing states that have been trending toward the Democrats, and there was even a survey a few days ago that showed Clinton ahead in Georgia, which has voted Republican in seven out of the last eight Presidential elections.
Reflecting the latest polling numbers, the betting markets now show Clinton to be a prohibitive favorite. On Sunday morning, at Betfair, on online bookie, the odds of her winning were 34/100. (That means that you would have to bet a hundred dollars to win thirty-four dollars.) But as every bettor knows, some odds-on favorites do end up losing. As recently as Wednesday, July 27th, just eleven days ago, Trump had a narrow lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average. The current figures reflect a post-Convention bounce for Clinton that could be reversed in the coming weeks. As the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walters pointed out, it is only August. Between now and November, much could happen. Clinton’s unfavorable ratings remain high, and there are a lot of angry and alienated voters out there, who might be attracted to an angry, alienating figure like Trump.
Given the fundamentals—the state of the economy, the President’s approval ratings, and the fact that the Democrats are seeking to win a third term in the Oval Office—history suggests that this should be a close election. But Trump’s self-destructive antics, coming on top of what was a pretty effective demolition job on him at the Democratic Convention, have, for now at least, taken the pressure off Clinton. While one hesitates to cite Newt Gingrich as an authority on anything other than zoos and his next book contract, there was a good deal of truth in what he said to the Washington Post a few days ago about Trump and Clinton: “The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable. Trump is helping her to win the election by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”
Theoretically, at least, Trump still has time to reboot, embrace self-discipline, and prepare for the television debates, all the while hoping that another Clinton scandal or a ghastly news event helps him out. But he’ll have to confront a potential mutiny among his fellow Republicans, a gaping disadvantage in field organization, and the widespread belief that he isn’t qualified to be President.
Unless Trump’s polling numbers rebound quickly and dramatically, Congressman Mike Coffman, of Colorado, won’t be the last Republican to run ads distancing himself from Trump. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns reported that G.O.P. Super pacs are already looking for ways to safeguard the party’s grip on the Senate and the House in the case of a Clinton blowout victory over Trump. “The conclusion has become that the guy is incorrigible,” Thomas M. Davis III, a well-connected former Republican congressman from Virginia, told the Times. “He’s going to leave our candidates with no choice but to go their own separate way.”
Trump’s organizational problems have also become critical. Despite the fact that he raised a lot of money in July, his campaign is still sorely lacking in local staff, data analytics, and paid television ads. For a candidate facing a largely hostile media, a lack of ads is particularly problematic. For months now, the Clinton campaign and its allies have been on the air in the swing states. The Trump campaign has been virtually invisible, and this disparity seems likely to continue for a while. Last week, NBC News reported that the Clinton campaign and pro-Clinton groups had reserved about a hundred million dollars in television ads through the fall, while pro-Trump groups had reserved about one million dollars in airtime.
Even if Trump manages to repair his relationship with nervous Republicans and cobble together a national political machine, of sorts, the central question remains: Can he persuade more than forty per cent of American voters that he’s qualified to be President? Ever since he launched his campaign, the Huffington Post has been tracking his favorability ratings and averaging them out. Although his numbers have moved up and down a bit, their message has been remarkably consistent. Since August 1st of last year, Trump’s favorable rating has never risen above thirty-eight per cent, and his unfavorable rating has never dropped below fifty-four per cent. Right now, the favorable figure is 33.7 per cent and the unfavorable figure is 61.3 per cent, for a net score of minus 27.6.
Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable numbers are also upside down—42.5 per cent favorable and 53.6 per cent unfavorable, which amounts to a net score of minus 11.1 per cent. But Clinton isn’t as unpopular as Trump, and she is running well ahead of him on most of the issues, including the ones that the Democrats have been hammering away at in the past few weeks. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that was released on Friday, for example, Clinton was ahead by eleven percentage points on the question of who would make a good Commander-in-Chief, and by eighteen percentage points on who has the ability to handle a crisis.
In sum, Trump faces a credibility crisis, which his antics over the past couple of weeks have heightened. On Saturday, Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “When you act as if you’re insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was nuts, a total flake.” To dispel this impression, it will take more than a couple of days of Trump holding his tongue.
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He also writes a column about politics, economics, and more, for newyorker.com.
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