Donald Trump can actually beat Hillary in November: Stubborn pundits still refuse to accept it

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from Salon:


Donald Trump can actually beat Hillary in November: Stubborn pundits still refuse to accept it
Polls have Hillary beating Trump in swing states, but the billionaire is far more popular than we'd like to believe

Sean Illing


Pundits are paid to pretend they know things. But we have no special insight, no higher claims to truth. We’re wrong as much as we’re right, if not more so. Sometimes it’s clear what will happen, often it’s not. In the case of Trump, everyone – myself included – got it wrong.

When Trump descended preposterously from that escalator and announced he was running for president, we all giggled. Trump? President? Seriously? And yet all the polls suggested that he had real traction. But we assumed his star would fade. Then he started winning primaries – by massive margins. We downplayed it. Then he made one gaffe after another – insulting John McCain’s military service, hurling a menstruation jab at Megyn Kelly, calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals,” promising to ban all Muslims from entering the country. He even vicariously called Ted Cruz a “pussy.”

None of it mattered. Trump is now on track to receive the most primary votes in the history of the Republican Party. Let that sink in for a moment.

The political class is experiencing a collective cognitive dissonance: We just can’t quite believe this is happening. And yet it is happening – right now, in front of our faces. Barring something extraordinary, Trump will be the Republican nominee. Will he win the general election? Probably not. But he absolutely could win, and willing ourselves to ignorance won’t make it any less likely.

.....(snip).....

The truth is that Trump is far more popular than we’d like to believe. A recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, for example, showed that Trump reached 50 percent approval among Republicans and Republican-leaners nationally for the first time since the poll started tracking in late December. He’s trending upwards, in other words.

As for this claim that there aren’t enough “xenophobic, angry white” people to elect Trump, well, that’s not so clear either. This is likely the case, but I wouldn’t bet the house on it. Take Trump’s outrageous comments about banning Muslims. Such an obscene and unconstitutional position ought to sink his campaign. However, as Byron York noted this week, take a look at the exit polls from recent Republican primaries. Voters aren’t just sympathetic to Trump’s proposal – they support it overwhelmingly. 69 percent of GOP voters in Pennsylvania said they agree with Trump. The number was 68 percent in New York; 69 percent in Wisconsin; 64 percent in Florida; 68 percent in Georgia; 65 percent in Ohio; and 65 percent in New Hampshire. These numbers will be significantly lower in a general election, but they’re high enough to dim the excitement of anyone who thinks Trump’s xenophobia is a deal-breaker. ......................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/donald_trump_can_actually_beat_hillary_in_november_stubborn_pundits_still_refuse_to_accept_it/