We have a long way to go.

Poll numbers are not votes, nor are they a reflection of the Electoral College, which, as everyone knows, is how one gets rid of Trump. As we have said before, Trump will near certainly lose the popular vote again, probably by much more. California will likely be so dead set against Trump it’s a joke. New York? Likewise. Same in Massachusets, and all those blue states that Trump has no hope of winning, his numbers will be below awful. It is entirely possible that Trump could lose the popular vote by six million votes, double last time.

As for the actual election, that, of course, is a different story. A solid Biden lead of 3-4 points isn’t safe, at all. We have gotten a preview of just how far Trump is willing to go in terms of his willingness to use a dictatorial assertion of power. For the transition to be “guaranteed” Trump needs to be routed. He needs to go into election day down 10 points and down 3-5 in all purple states. He needs to lose the EC by 40 points or more.

We are getting there. Slowly but surely, the country is awakening. No, we aren’t going to peel that many votes off the hard base, but the hard base hasn’t genuinely been tested. It is somewhere between 33-38%. We know because Trump’s poll numbers are diving straight down into that territory. From John Harwood:

New Reuters/Ipsos polling: Biden 47% Trump 37%

Approve of Trump job performance: 39%

Disapprove his handling of protests: 55%

The key number as I see it is that 39%. We have seen other polls with Trump down 10 percentage points – double digits, which is great. It has been a long long time since Trump has been below 40% approval ratings. He has been at 41-42% when way down before. In April, with a slight bump due to COVID shutdowns, it had been 47%. Thirty-nine percent is death to Trump.

Yes, his base is very hard, but it’s also hard going up. He will not get above 47, maximum. So it only takes swinging 5-10% to ruin him, forever.

We know he watches his poll numbers like no one before him. He will hear about this, will he ever hear about this, and he’ll start firing campaign staff and go into a free fall. At least, we hope so, because that’s precisely what we need right now.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom