It appears that the RNC back a few weeks ago generated little more than a small bounce for President Trump, as this Gallup poll suggests:
Maybe having your prospective daughter in law scream into a microphone isn’t inspirational after all?
After the big drop off between June and July, Trump has only gained a little bit of approval back. This correlates with FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate polling:
I interpret the slight narrowing as an incumbency effect: folks, particularly those who voted for Trump in 2016, don’t really want to believe in the magnitude of their error. Add in some campaign advertising, and even his recent debacles don’t move the needle. Such is the power of a cult over the minds of its followers.
But this poll for Minnesota from ABC News/WaPo is so shocking that I don’t really believe it:
The image is from the ABC News/WaPo press release.
But, sure, let’s go with it. The state has seen a great deal of chaos over the last 9 months, and much of it associates with President Trump, whether or not that’s a fair assessment. We may be seeing reactions to the latest revelations, such as Woodward’s latest book & tapes, as well as the anonymously sources reports of his disdain for the military.
This could be a move towards a 20 point avalanche for Joe Biden, who I suspect many consider a representative of a more sane era, when serious people ran the government, generally told the truth, and offered civil service leadership. Trump may, indeed, be wasting money in Minnesota, if, in fact, the Trump Campaign ad buys are in earnest.
But it does raise the question of Wisconsin. While our neighbor’s composition is certainly different from Minnesota’s, it’s not all that different – mostly white, with cosmopolitan as well as rural areas. So why are Biden and Trump within – barely – the margin of error? Or is the error “the other way” and Biden is, in reality, up by 8 points?
The anticipation between Election Night and the day the counting process is finished will be a killer, I tell ya!
