Another week, another set of bad polling news for former president Donald Trump. That seems to be the pattern of late, and after months of massive polling leads over President Biden and a general overall assumption that Republicans were going to trounce to an easy win, for our side it’s demoralizing to say the least.
But is it a surprise? If it was to you, it shouldn’t have been. Replacing an inept dementia patient with someone, anyone, even half functioning was always going to merit a polling bounce as despondent Dems rallied around their new standard bearer. Same with the VP pick, even with someone as horrible and unvetted as Tim Waltz. And it’ll be the same through the convention later this month, as Democrats do everything they can to hoodwink Americans into thinking they’re normal people and not the closeted blue-haired Bolsheviks they actually are. Trust me, it didn’t matter who the non-Biden nominee was, they were going to take the lead.
The bad news? Yes, Kamala Harris has now taken the overall RCP average polling lead at .5%, and she also leads in several key swing states that Trump will have to have a few of in order to pull off the upset. The good news? Well, this time four years ago, Biden led Trump by over seven percentage points, and the gap remained wide throughout the election, only narrowing at the last minute to a bit under five. And despite it all, that election was still razor thin.
In other words, Trump is still within striking distance. That’s right, despite insulting a popular GOP governor in a swing state, Georgia, that he absolutely must have, despite floating the idea of punishing flag burners with prison time, despite disparaging Harris with the kind of insults and questions that actually drive swing voters to her side instead of focusing on her insane policy positions, despite these and a host of other unforced errors that would have sunk almost any other politician, Trump still has a puncher’s chance of winning this election.
Make no mistake, it was never going to be easy, not even against Biden. The establishment media, despite turning on the president in hopes he would be replaced, was always going to rally behind Weekend at Bernie’s at the end had he stayed, and they’re only too happy to boost Krazy Kamala to get her across the finish line as well. We were going to be fighting the media no matter what, and we all know it. Sure, removing Biden makes it easier for them, but it’s also thankfully not a slam dunk.
The key, of course, is for Trump to clean up his act and stop making unforced errors to hurt his chances. He needs to focus on issues that are important to ordinary Americans, like the economy. Voters want to know what’s going to be done to help them in the future.
I often see social media influencers blame the lack of messaging on Trump’s advisors. “Why aren’t they telling him to stick to the script?” they ask. The answer is that they are, but you can only lead a horse to water. Is Trump capable of cleaning up his act and running a great campaign these last few months? The answer isn’t clear, but I do believe it’s to some degree possible. After all, he’s made mistakes and managed to come back from them before. I remember writing a column in April 2016 for TheBlaze titled, “I Support Donald Trump, But For All Our Sakes, It's Time For Him To Seriously Up His Game.” It was during the heated GOP primaries and it felt like Trump kept being his own worst enemy. My worst nightmare at the time was Ted Cruz winning and getting pummeled by Hillary Clinton in the general.
Here’s an excerpt: “Trump has been my candidate almost since the beginning, but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize some of the things he has done and said that have hurt his campaign. So, why not stop supporting him? Let’s put it this way. It’s like when your team leads not just the conference but the entire league in penalties. They’re still your team, but dang it if you don’t get mad at them now and then.”
That paragraph applies just as much now as it did then. Like it or not, Trump is the GOP nominee and that’s not going to change. Our best hope is for his advisors to keep trying to instill some message discipline and for Trump to realize that his best chance at a win, and a reprieve from the lawfare that threatens to take away his very freedom should he lose, is to follow that advice.