Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Any Port in a Storm

 

I try to pay little attention to polls -- especially when they scare the living shit outta me -- but I'm grabbing for the results from a national poll conducted by North Carolina's own conservative guru Carter Wrenn who teamed up with reformed Trumpist hit-man John Bolton.

Our friend Gary Pearce presents the most salient numbers from those cross-tabs, along with this piece of political wisdom by Carter Wrenn, who "is challenging the conventional wisdom that the Republican Party is Trump’s party":

“When a candidate’s popularity begins to wane it’s seldom like a titanic crash – it’s more like watching a row of dominoes fall: People who once said ‘He’s great’ roll downhill saying ‘He’s okay;’ people who used to shrug ‘He’s okay’ roll downhill saying ‘I no longer like him.’ That’s what’s happening to Donald Trump.”

I'd really like to believe that. I mean, really. But it's hard watching the Republicans in state leges moving hard and fast to barricade the ballot box, and Republicans in Congress doing everything in their power to rewrite the insurrection of January 6th as a merely enthusiastic visit by happy tourists, and Republican parties everywhere purging everyone deemed one degree less than perfectly Trump-loyal. Jeez! It's a spectacle of apparent Trump power everywhere you look.

But here are some numbers from that poll to leaven the lump:

Here were Trump’s numbers among Republican voters last October in a New York Times/Siena College poll: very favorable, 77; somewhat favorable, 15; unfavorable, 6.

 Here were Trump’s numbers this April in Carter’s poll: very favorable, 58; somewhat favorable, 27; unfavorable, 13....

“Trump opposing a candidate in a Republican primary does not appear to matter a great deal to Republican primary voters. 50% said Trump opposing a candidate makes no difference to them. 26% said they would be more likely to vote against a candidate Trump opposes; 24% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate Trump opposes – a margin of only 2 points.”

Trump's disapproval among independent voters is much worse.

 

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