Why are the Trump defectors having such little impact on the polls and Trump's chances?

While I’m certainly not going to claim the Democrats are free of bigotry, corruption and/or incompetence, those are three metrics by which the current Republican party leaves them in the dust. Consider, as an easy example, the recent RNC, with its multiple blatant violations of the Hatch Act and the litany of dogwhistle racism including a call for the return of de facto redlining. Anyone voting Republican because they are bothered by bigotry, incompetence and corruption among the Democrats is basically saying “I’m afraid that dog will bite me, so I’m going to go stand in this pit of rabid wolverines instead”. It is not a decision based on a rational assessment of the evidence.

No political party will ever be completely free of bigotry, incompetence and corruption because political parties are made up of people and people (collectively) suck. All you can do is either vote for the least worst option or not vote at all - and if you’re not voting, why should any party care what you think of them?

And here we see another common refrain: “I might have voted Democratic if only they’d nominated someone else.” Strangely, it’s always “someone else” who might have somehow convinced these purported fencesitters to vote for the Democrat. And there’ll be jam tomorrow…

Democratic Party. Don’t worry - it’s a common mistake often made by roughly half the country.

And if they have actually taken stock of the given choices, they can do what they want. But given the rampant anti-minority sentiment and support for white nationalism amongst Trump and his administration, I’d certainly be curious as to how they reached that conclusion.