So we learned from a new ABC News Ipsos poll
that Donald Trump's favorability has actually
declined since the Republican convention by
a little bit.
Now, to understand why this is important and
then what the limits are, we should first
talk a little bit about what normally happens
when there are conventions.
So if you if you go back many decades, the
way that it typically works is the incumbent
party has their convention second.
But regardless, you see that whoever has their
convention first gets a little bit of a bump
in the polling and favor ability and then
the numbers settle back down.
And then whoever goes second with their convention
gets a little bump in the polling and favor
ability.
And then it comes back down.
And by the time we get into September and
debates and then October and all of the things
that happen in the two months leading up to
an election, the effect of the conventions
is essentially sort of zeroed out.
Things return to the mean.
That's the normal situation, according to
a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos.
Donald Trump has not even gotten the bump
in favor ability.
Donald Trump now has 31 percent favor ability
in the United States.
And he went into the Republican National Convention
with 32 percent favorability.
Now, what's really important to remember about
that is that there are many people who have
an unfavorable view of Trump and are still
going to vote for him, much like there are
people who have an unfavorable view of Joe
Biden but are going to vote for him because
they accurately recognize that he's a better
choice than Donald Trump.
So even though Trump's favor ability is in
the low 30s, Donald Trump is certainly going
to get 40 something percent of the popular
vote in November.
And exactly where in the 40s he falls is going
to determine whether he gets reelected or
not.
If we look at the internals of this favorability
decline, Trump's favor ability during the
convention or since the convention dropped
four points among Republicans.
So Republicans.
Were were particularly not thrilled with what
they saw during the convict convention on
individual issues.
Corona virus continues to be a big problem
for Trump, where 63 percent of Americans disapprove
of his handling.
And then just for comparison, Joe Biden's
favorability went up six points from pre to
post convention, 40 percent to 46 percent.
Now, it's still not great.
And this is one of the reasons why if you
want to compare this election to one from
times past, you look at 2016 where you had
two candidates.
In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump.
In 2020, you have Joe Biden and Donald Trump,
neither of whom has 50 percent favorability.
Now, the difference between Biden at 46 and
Trump at 31 is significant.
But, of course, it's ultimately going to come
down to a handful of five to eight or so a
battleground states.
And we're going to talk about that in a little
bit.
Now, in terms of who watched the convention,
we talked last week, in the week before, during
the convention coverage about who is this
really for?
We learned that 72 percent watched very little
or none of the conventions.
So it continues to be clear that voters who
watched a lot of the conventions over the
last couple of weeks are voters who are already
definitely voting.
In other words, they were definitely voting
even before the conventions started.
They weren't convinced to vote by the conventions.
And number two are almost certainly already
decided.
And that is an important thing to think about
in terms of the reviews of the conventions.
When Donald Trump brags that his speech was
very well reviewed or someone else says Trump's
speech was bad or Biden was good or whatever
the case may be, most people who watched these
conventions are already very much decided.
And a lot of people are simply not watching
them at all.
So what really matters is for us to step back
and look at the trends.
If you look at one trend, like the Gallup
presidential approval tracking poll, interesting
there that Donald Trump has never hit 50 percent
approval on even one sampling of the Gallup
presidential approval tracking poll during
his entire presidency.
Donald Trump never hit 50 percent, but half
the country does not vote, which means that
even without 50 percent approval, even without
35 percent favorability.
Donald Trump can still win inaction.
Not voting is an action.
It has an effect.
And it has never, never been more dangerous
than it is right now in many swing states.
Donald Trump is doing OK.
Shockingly, if you're paying attention to
what's going on, you should be shocked by
this.
In many swing states, Donald Trump's approval
on Corona virus has actually started to tick
up, even if it's still one of the biggest
areas of liability for Donald Trump nationally.
So when we talk about if Trump wins, what
will it mean?
Yeah, it will mean that there are lots of
easily manipulable people in the country.
It will mean that there are lots of cognitively
compromised people.
But Democrats are going to have some responsibility
to bear.
I mean, if Democrats lose this with Trump
at 31 percent approval, you can't just blame
trumpets for being dumb.
That would be a complete lack of self-awareness.
It would partially be the inability to control
the narrative against Donald Trump, the inability
to actually put together.
But it doesn't even have to be perfect messaging,
just good enough messaging to beat someone
who's 31 percent favorability rating is historically
low.
Get out.
The vote will have been a failing for sure,
because we know that nonvoters from 2016 overwhelmingly
favor Joe Biden.
If you can't get them to vote, you're going
to have some responsibility to bear as well.
So there are lots of elements of this feeling
like 2016.
And when you look at these numbers, when you
look at the polling data I looked at with
you last week, the last thing any of us should
be doing is thinking Joe Biden's got this
in the bag.
It's not reverse gaslighting.
It's not concern trolling.
It's looking a lot like 2016 in many ways.
Hopefully it ends up differently.
Let me know what you think.
I'm
on Twitter at David Pakman.
