| Donald Trump needs a turnaround. A yuuuge turnaround. Believe me, he needs the biggest turnaround you've ever seen. Does he have enough to work with over the next three months to make it happen? Let's put it this way -- the answer isn't "no." |
| It's August, and we're all bored. What's wrong with a thought exercise? |
| We admit it -- we were pretty excited at seeing a once-in-a-generation floor fight at one of the presidential conventions (as was most of the political media) and it didn't happen. So it's no surprise that when ABC News speculated about another highly improbable political event -- a presidential nominee dropping out of the race -- that we all went off the deep end about it. Yesterday, ABC News speculated on how the GOP could replace Trump as the party's nominee. Step One: He probably needs to decide on his own to drop out of the race. And he needs to do it within the next month. So ... nothing to see here, really. |
| Still, it's not a good sign when you have to tweet about how unified your campaign is, or when your campaign manager needs to insist that everything's going fine . Surely it's not as bad as it looks right now for Trump -- after all, we're still more than three months away from Election Day. But is there reason for hope on the Trump Train? |
| So you're saying there's a chance ... |
| For starters, Donald Trump IS the Republican Party. If any of his doubters in the party had the power to unseat him, they would have done so by now. Even his frenemy Paul Ryan is minus-12 in favorability. So if Republicans think there's someone else out there to take the reins, that person hasn't entered the national consciousness yet. |
| Then there's the suddenly revitalized campaign donation numbers -- $80 million last month, nearly matching Clinton's haul of $90 million for July. Trump has donated $56 million of his own money to the campaign so far, and presumably there's more where that came from. |
| And theoretically, there's the possibility of a new Hillary-centric scandal coming out of nowhere in the coming months. Less than two weeks ago, a Democratic National Committee email scandal showed favoritism toward Clinton among party leadership. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. government delivered $400 million to Iran at the same time four hostages were freed. No, Clinton wasn't secretary of State at the time, despite Trump's efforts to pin it on her. Still, she's going to benefit -- or suffer -- from the electorate's opinion of the Obama administration this November. |
| Safety in numbers |
| Trump's polling numbers have looked pretty bad for the past week and a half -- just yesterday, a Fox News poll of likely voters showed Trump down by 10, his biggest deficit in any one poll since early July. But are the numbers historically bad? As in, can't-climb-out-of-this-hole-this-late bad? Eh ... not really. |
| We only have to look back to the 2008 election to find a candidate down by 10 points and going on to win: A USA TODAY/Gallup poll of likely voters in early September 2008 had John McCain leading Barack Obama, 54%-44%. And the fact that he's trailed in nine out of the last 10 polls ? George W. Bush arguably had a worse run from early July through late August 2004, leading in only six of 42 polls (he was tied in four others). As for his low favorability ratings (RealClearPolitics currently has it at 35.3%), it's not that much worse than George W. Bush's approval rating of 42% in late June 2004 ... and he's going up against someone else with a double-digit favorability deficit, which definitely helps. |
| Are we just cherry-picking data here? Absolutely. The situation doesn't look great at all for Team Trump, but it's not hopeless. All we're saying here is it's not time to start popping Champagne bottles in Chappaqua just yet. |
| More from the campaign trail |
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| Take out words like 'luxurious' and 'yuge,' and it's hard to tell the difference |
| Jimmy Kimmel Live asked Clinton supporters at the convention if they agreed with Trump quotes. They were mostly on board. |
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