The thing to notice is that currently many professional climate change deniers and few skeptic scientists accept that global warming is happening. They put a fig leaf on by misleadingly claiming that humans are not the cause and that the warming will not be as bad as the vast majority of experts tell us it can get the longer we do not control emissions.
Trump in that New Hampshire rally demonstrated that he and virtually all his followers there ignore also what the few skeptical scientists are telling the Republicans leaders regarding the barely plausible explanations they have to explain the observed warming and the changes, Trump and his followers go to the extreme of denying the warming that even skeptical scientists observed.
Killing the explanations that skeptics and deniers have constructed for years.
As has been mentioned, there isn’t solid evidence the race has changed much lately. The latest WP poll had Trump down 12, the NBC/WSJ 5 head to head, but the latter poll had Clinton up by only 1 when respondents were allowed to pick minor party candidates, which they are allowed to do in the real world.
Actually a whole series of polls now has shown Clinton’s margin smaller when minor party choices are allowed than head to head. The potential positive flip side is that the minor choices almost always fade as the election approaches, and the votes might go back more to Clinton.
Trump isn’t particularly collapsing. His average poll position is worse than it’s been at some times and better than at other times recently. But to actually win you have to pull ahead (in the right places to get 270 EV obviously, but aren’t going to pull 270 EV down nationally by more than a fraction of a % in today’s alignment, realistically).
However there may be equal numbers or more Republican voters who will never admit to voting for the hated Hillary, but do so in the privacy of the voting booth. Or at least not vote for Trump.
The number of Sanders voters who say they will vote for Trump has already fallen from 20% to 3%, and will no doubt decline more after Bernie starts attacking Trump louder.
Brexit never conned innocents. Brexit never made fun of disable reporters. Brexit never called Mexicans rapists. Hillary is fast making this about Trump (speaking of fighting dirty) and even nominal Republican Trump supporters aren’t saying he is qualified. It is too big a lie even for Mitch.
That was one paper, and polling is tad better today. You can Karl Rove can doubt the polls all you want.
Typically third party candidates get fewer votes than predicted, because peoplw won’t want to throw their votes away. But the Libertarians might get more if it looks like voting for Trump is throwing the vote away. But they won’t be hurting Hillary.
You also forget that Trump has no money and no organization, and is depending on the RNC which is not super-enthusiastic.
And give up his chance to make 45-minute speeches every night? No way! He’s going to revel in the acclaim, soak up the applause, and have the very night of his life, nominated “The next President of the United States of America!”
He might flame out sometime in September. That would be sweet. But he’s riding this ego-trip through the convention, sure as the Devil made toupees.
I’m wondering if today’s Supreme Court decision might give Trump one last chance to make good with republicans. Trump and the Republicans don’t agree on much these days, but they both have a healthy contempt for women’s rights. This might be the opportunity he’s been waiting for. Maybe Trump re-brands himself as the foul mouth billionaire who never attends church…but swears he will defend Christians. Maybe this is his chance to be a crusader. The scary thing is…he could make it work.
Johnson, of course, wasn’t elected to the Presidency. But to be totally pedantic about it, technically both he and Lincoln abandoned their respective parties to run on the third-party National Union ticket in 1864. Which means that that despite its long run of dominance, the Republican party has never won more than four straight Presidential elections. (1868/72/76/80 [Grant, Hayes, and Garfield] and 1896/1900/04/08 [McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft]). The Democrats have them beat at five (1932/36/40/44/48 Roosevelt II and Truman) on the technicality.
I doubt anyone will ever threaten the seven straight wins for the Democratic-Republican Party. Unless today’s Democratic and Republican parties end up merging and reforming it, I suppose.
If I ever run for President, I’m running as a Whig. Just 'cause. “You’re a what?” “No, a Whig.”
Stewie: “Whig. That’s a niiiiice word…Whig.”
Brian: “You’re doing that WH thing again, aren’t you?”
Stewie: “Whig. I hear that Whigs like Kool Whip.”
Brian: “Arrrrrgh…”
Stewie: “Whig.”
Disclaimer: I have Whigs in my family tree. So I’ve been saying Whig for years.
Trump has no money, and the free media attention he’s coasted on up to now is drying up. He’s toast, not least because he’s plainly bored with the whole campaign now.
I don’t think free media coverage “drying up” is the problem, its just that its basically the default in a general election race. The media devotes basically 24 hour coverage to every sneeze both general election candidates make, so it doesn’t really give Trump an advantage over Hillary, or an advantage past general election candidates didn’t have.
Plus, most of the “free media” Trump got during the nomination was focused on how crazy and racist he was. This turned out to work for him, since a plurality of GOP primary voters wanted a crazy racist candidate. But this (hopefully) isn’t the case with the general electorate.
