Donald Trump’s Numbers Are Historically Bad

It's still early in the cycle, but Donald Trump's poll numbers are already historically bad.

Donald Trump Shrug

Donald Trump’s poll numbers are bad, and getting worse, and that’s before the negative ads start:

In 2016’s race to the bottom, Donald Trump is going to find out if you can become president when two-thirds of Americans don’t like you — and a majority can’t stand you.

Recent polls have showed Trump’s unfavorable rating spiking again, after a brief improvement last month. That’s also coincided with a slide in national horse-race polls, which now unanimously show Hillary Clinton leading the presumptive Republican nominee. Clinton is also more unpopular than past nominees, but her negatives are neither as wide nor as deep as the broadly detested Trump.

Trump is setting modern records for political toxicity — at least for a major-party candidate this far out from an election. Seventy percent of Americans surveyed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll out this week had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, up 10 points over the past month. The poll showed Trump’s favorable rating cratering at 29 percent, down from 37 percent last month.

The numbers were similar in a Bloomberg Politics poll: Trump’s favorable rating is just 31 percent, with 66 percent viewing him unfavorably. That’s only marginally better than in March, when 29 percent viewed Trump favorably, and 68 percent had an unfavorable opinion.

Gallup’s latest figures show Trump at 31 percent favorable/63 percent unfavorable – significantly worse than Clinton’s 41 percent favorable/54 percent unfavorable.

Those high unfavorables extend to the battleground states: A Marquette Law School poll out Wednesday found 64 percent of Wisconsin voters view Trump unfavorably — compared to only 26 percent who have a favorable opinion of him.

But it’s not just the overall unfavorable numbers — it’s the intensity of the antipathy toward Trump, and the lack of enthusiasm for him. In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 56 percent of respondents had a “strongly unfavorable” opinion of Trump, compared to just 15 percent who had a “strongly favorable” opinion. In the Bloomberg poll, 51 percent had a “very unfavorable” opinion of Trump, with only 11 percent having a “very favorable” opinion.

(…)

Trump’s unpopularity is without historical peer in the modern era of presidential campaigns. Mitt Romney averaged a 46-percent unfavorable rating in mid-June 2012, according to the HuffPost Pollster database. John McCain’s unfavorable rating four years prior was only 40 percent, and more voters had a positive opinion of the Arizona senator than a negative one. In June 2004, then-Sen. John Kerry had a 58-percent favorable rating, according to Gallup, with only 35 percent viewing him unfavorably. Also from Gallup: Al Gore, in late June 2000, had a 52-percent favorable rating, and Bob Dole had a 55-percent favorable rating in June 1996.

Then-President George H.W. Bush is the last candidate to have a majority-unfavorable rating in June of an election year (51 percent unfavorable in June 1992), according to Gallup. But Bill Clinton’s unfavorable rating that year (47 percent) was also high. In May 1988, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, Michael Dukakis had an otherworldly 67-percent favorable rating, with just 10 percent viewing him unfavorably.

These numbers come at the same time that we have seen Trump’s favorable/unfavorable numbers sink to levels seldom seen with major party Presidential candidates just a few weeks out from having clinched their party’s nomination. Ordinarily, this is a time when a candidate receives as at least something of a positive bounce in the polls due to the fact that the rest of his party is starting to rally around him after a long primary fight while others who may have just been watching the race from the sidelines start to line up behind one candidate or the other. In Trump’s case, though, while the recent polling has shown most self-identified Republicans are lining up behind him, his controversial candidacy has also yielded considerable angst among long time Republicans as well as elected officials, many of whom are running away from the Trump campaign as fast as possible. At the same time, and for reasons that only he can explain, Trump decided to spend the last two weeks talking about an allegedly biased “Mexican” Judge presiding over the consumer fraud cases against Trump University, attacking the media for allegedly unfair coverage, repeating his call for a ban on all Muslim immigration for an unspecified amount of time, and insinuating that the President of the United States sympathizes with ISIS. Given that, it’s entirely unsurprising that the public as a whole, which has long had a much more skeptical view of Trump than his hardcore supporters or even other Republicans, is turning negative against him.

What’s somewhat remarkable is the fact that his campaign doesn’t seem at all concerned by this, and that they don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. The best example of this can be seen in the fact that the Clinton campaign, along with at least one of its supporting SuperPACs is about to unleash more than $100 million in negative ads against Trump in battleground states, while Trump’s campaign has virtually no money with which to counter such an advertising blitz. In many respects, this reminds one of the manner in which the Obama campaign used the summer prior to the General Election to negatively define Romney by concentrating on his time at Bain Capital and the stories of people who were negatively impacted by the decisions that Bain executives made during the process of restructuring distressed companies. In addition to the fact that his campaign completely mishandled its own reaction to the effort to attack him for a part of his record they knew would come under attack, Romney essentially let the attacks go on unanswered for weeks to the point where they were successful in defining him for the General Election. The same thing appears to be about to happen to Trump, and the fact that the campaign doesn’t even appear able to respond to attacks that should have been anticipated months ago shows just how badly things are apparently going at Trump Tower.

Dan Balz puts it best when he notes that, even at this point five months away, November appears to be set to become a referendum on Trump, If that happens, then it seems apparent that the election is effectively over as far as Republicans are concerned. First of all, it’s unlikely that Trump will be able to effectively recover from the incredibly law favorable/unfavorable numbers plaguing him in such a short period of time. In order to do so, he’d essentially have to find a way for voters outside his hardcore base to forget not only about the past year and every controversial and offensive thing he’s said, but also the past thirty-odd years he’s been in the public eye. Hillary Clinton admittedly has a similar problem but as Balz and others note, Clinton’s unfavorable numbers are nowhere near as bad as Trump’s are across the board and Clinton has a strong reservoir of support among many groups and she isn’t facing the problem of being abandoned by large segments of her own party. More importantly, at least for now the attacks by Trump and others on Clinton don’t seem to be having nearly as much impact as the latest round of attacks are having on Trump, as long as that remains the case, Trump’s numbers will likely continue to fall. And if Balz is right that, in the end, the race in November essentially becomes a referendum on Donald Trump, then things could end up being very bad for Republicans as a whole.

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, Public Opinion Polls, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Jen says:

    Trump has just fired his campaign manager, and the state AG in New York is apparently looking into the number of times Trump has promoted products (books, board game, vodka) saying the profits will go to charity, but then (allegedly) not doing so–this is potentially fraud. Add that to the existing fraud cases of Trump U…

    Is he even going to make it to November? This is an honest, serious question.

  2. C. Clavin says:

    Clinton is also more unpopular than past nominees, but her negatives are neither as wide nor as deep as the broadly detested Trump.

    True, but most people also see Clinton as capable. Trump is an incompetent buffoon.
    Anyone who thinks Trump should be President has serious mental health issues.

  3. cian says:

    @Jen:

    If this is all about the Trump brand, and it is, then he has no choice but to keep going until the end. Otherwise he’s a quitter and the brand suffers. He has at least 13 million new marks to target over the next number of years, and these are prime, A1, gold standard dupes poised to buy any old sh%t this guy chooses to sell them. They can handle a defeat, particularly one spun as a stab in the back by the elites, but not as a quitter.

  4. Rafer Janders says:

    @cian:

    It’s interesting about his brand, in that’s he absolutely destroyed his traditional brand with this campaign. After November any kind of business that has to appeal to the general public won’t touch him, and since his whole income stream depends on licensing his name, that would traditionally mean disaster. However, he may be able to pivot from a broadcasting to a narrowcasting model, targeting the far-right wing dupes. As Limbaugh and others have shown, there’s money in that — but will Trump be able to make that transition from an ego viewpoint?

  5. gVOR08 says:

    When we’re driving my wife occasionally asks of another driver, “What is that person doing” To which I generally reply, “If he knew, he’d have done it by now.” Trump really is the dog that caught the car. If he does eventually decide he’s serious about winning and comes up with a plan, it’s getting way too late.

  6. Facebones says:

    The negative ads just write themselves. All the democrats have to do is put together a 30 second reel of Trump’s greatest hits. The birther nonsense. Megan Kelly “bleeding out of her wherever.” Mocking the NY Times reporter. Racist attacks on the Trump U judge.

    Then ad a state specific tag line. “This is what the nominee of the party of Kelly Ayotte/Mark Kirk/Ron Johnson stands for.” Keep tying him to the down ballot candidates. Let them squirm.

  7. Blue Galangal says:

    @gVOR08: Yes – look at his outsourced national campaign and his (lack of) ground game in his own campaign. Say what you will about HRC, she’s had a ground game in place for well over a year (to the point of getting delegates to Show Up and Vote, ahem) and is willing and able to work with the DNC.

  8. Scott F. says:

    @cian:

    There’s a sucker born every minute, but I’ve got to think that marks for the Trump brand will be far and few between come December.

    Trump has already tarnished his brand through his antics over the last year and, regardless of how he plays the general election, it only stands to get worse. Either he finds a way out and he’s a quitter or he endures 5 months of constant scrutiny of his business dirty laundry and he’s a fraud.

    Both courses end with him as a loser, while his brand is all about Trump being a winner. I don’t see how he repairs the damage he’s done.

  9. grumpy realist says:

    Looks like someone else is getting a wee bit suspicious about all the stuff Trump was promising would go to charity….

    But I’m sure it will be all right. I’m sure Trump’s lawyers will claim that promising profits to go to a charity when it makes its way into your own pocket is only “well-accepted puffery.”

    (I must say, the preponderance of this sort of stuff makes me think that ol’ Donnie is having a ca$h flow problem. Why fart around with such penny-ante silliness if you are really raking in the bucks the way you claim you are?)

  10. stonetools says:

    Republicans, please don’t abandon Trump. He’ll get better, trust me…

    HehHehHehHehHehHehHeh.

  11. gVOR08 says:

    @Scott F.: As a couple of lefty bloggers have pointed out, it’s not enough that Trump lose. Whatever the H Trumpism was going to evolve into has to be staked through the heart. Trump has to lose with historic margins. His brand must be tarnished to the point all the gold TRUMP signs turn green with verdigris. He has to be reduced to begging and his children to finding honest work. Even the most rabid Trumpite has to recognize that far from a silent majority, they were a noisy minority. The Republican Party has to be slapped into growing up and realizing that a decade or two in the wilderness is a small price to pay for their souls.

    If polls in Oct show Hillary up 30%, send money to her and go door to door anyway. Trump delenda est.

  12. JKB says:

    And yet this election was never suppose to be about illegal immigration or, that which shall not be named, radical Islam.

    So really, win or lose, Trump has defined this election and the priorities of the next administration.

  13. Facebones says:

    Josh Marshall had a very good piece about why the Trump Train has derailed. BAsically, now that he’s outside the bubble of white rage and resentment that makes up the Republican primary, he’s finding few buyers for what he’s selling.

    Here we get back to the simple, critical difference between between the primaries and the general election. Trump supporters exist entirely within the Trump fact bubble. They were more than sufficient to win the Republican primaries. They either believe his claims or are indifferent to their accuracy. The Trump world is based on a self-contained, self-sustaining bullshit feedback loop. Trump isn’t racist. He’s actually the least racist person in America.

    [T]he general election puts a bullshit based candidacy in direct contact with the reality based world. That creates not only turbulence but turbulence that builds on itself because the interaction gets in the spokes of each of these two, fundamentally different idea systems. You’re seeing the most telling signs of that with the growing number of Republicans who, having already endorsed Trump, are now literally refusing to discuss him or simply walking away when his name is mentioned.

  14. cian says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    and since his whole income stream depends on licensing his name, that would traditionally mean disaster.

    This has always confused me: For someone who cares so deeply about his name, he seems to have spent most of his business career attaching it to some of the most awful pieces of crap going- urine sample gathering, fraudulent universities, the republican party.

  15. grumpy realist says:

    Whoopsie. Looks like Trump will be even worse for the economy than we thought.

    But keep supporting him, Republicans. You know you want to.

  16. wr says:

    @JKB: “So really, win or lose, Trump has defined this election and the priorities of the next administration.”

    That is just about the most pathetic thing I’ve ever read in my life. “Okay, my party may be going down to historic losses as its candidate is rejected by vast majorities of Americans and takes down many officeholders with him… but really we win because somebody somewhere is going to say that Mexicans and Muslims are icky!!!”

  17. wr says:

    I eagerly away the refutation by Little Jenos that Trump is doing all this on purpose to make his inevitable win look even bigger, and he knows this because it’s been pronounced by some guy who has dragged out three jokes over decades of his comic strip.

  18. Kylopod says:

    @JKB:

    And yet this election was never suppose to be about illegal immigration or, that which shall not be named, radical Islam.
    So really, win or lose, Trump has defined this election and the priorities of the next administration.

    Even if that were true–and I don’t see that it is–what does it accomplish? A President Hillary isn’t going to build a wall across the Mexican border or put a halt on Muslim immigration. She will have to address illegal immigration and radical Islam, but it’s likely her solutions won’t bear much resemblance to anything Trump has proposed. If that’s enough for him and his supporters to pat themselves on the back and claim a Pyrrhic victory, well, it’s a free country.

  19. Andrew says:

    Trump is nothing more than a Troll. Period. He never thought he would get this far, but maybe that is because he forgot what Carlin educated us about. Think how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

    In which case, we have the personification of South Park jokes every single day. Which given any other venue would be hilarious. Yet, Trump chose politics, where responsibility is something you have to expect at some point.

    PS. The ‘Merican Dream Team of Trump and Co. think the American Dream is dead. Amazing that a white millionaire can say such a thing, and the lemmings of said person can cheer along so loudly.

    Yet, I wonder the type of response that would get from the same people if, let us say, President Obama said it?

  20. John Peabody says:

    “Donald Trump’s Numbers are Historically Bad”.

    I gotsta say it:

    “Donald Trump’s Numbers are History. Bad!”

  21. stonetools says:

    Dr. K on why Trump won the Republican primary, yet is tanking in the general:

    The Republican establishment was easily overthrown because it was already hollow at the core. Donald Trump’s taunts about “low-energy” Jeb Bush and “little Marco” Rubio worked because they contained a large element of truth. When Mr. Bush and Mr. Rubio dutifully repeated the usual conservative clichés, you could see that there was no sense of conviction behind their recitations. All it took was the huffing and puffing of a loud-mouthed showman to blow their houses down.

    But as Mr. Trump is finding out, the Democratic establishment is different….

    Why is Mrs. Clinton holding up so well against Mr. Trump, when establishment Republicans were so hapless? Partly it’s because America as a whole, unlike the Republican base, isn’t dominated by angry white men; partly it’s because, as anyone watching the Benghazi hearing realized, Mrs. Clinton herself is a lot tougher than anyone on the other side.

    But a big factor, I’d argue, is that the Democratic establishment in general is fairly robust. I’m not saying that its members are angels, which they aren’t. Some, no doubt, are personally corrupt. But the various groups making up the party’s coalition really care about and believe in their positions — they’re not just saying what the Koch brothers pay them to say.

    I think Dr. K, and the aforementioned Marshall, have pretty much covered all the bases on this.

  22. Moosebreath says:

    And from the noted leftists at Moody Analytics, including John McCain’s principal economics advisor, an analysis of Trump’s proposed budget:

    “the economy will be significantly weaker if Mr. Trump’s economic proposals are adopted. Under the scenario in which all his stated policies become law in the manner proposed, the economy suffers a lengthy recession and is smaller at the end of his four-year term than when he took office (see Chart). By the end of his presidency, there are close to 3.5 million fewer jobs and the unemployment rate rises to as high as 7%, compared with below 5% today. During Mr. Trump’s presidency, the average American household’s after-inflation income will stagnate, and stock prices and real house values will decline.”

    Make America Great (Recession) Again!

  23. C. Clavin says:

    @JKB:

    this election was never suppose to be about illegal immigration or, that which shall not be named, radical Islam.

    What is with Republicans idiotic fixation on that phrase? It’s like they are some kind of magic words? Say them and everything will be awesome. Infantile.
    This election is not about those things…Trump has no serious policy positions on those things; even if he somehow gets elected he’s never going to build a wall and he’s never going to deport 12M people, and he’s never going to stop people from immigrating to this country based on their religion….this election is purely about Trump and how he stokes the Republican bases xenophobia, racism, misogyny, hatred and fear.
    This race has turned into a referendum on Trump…and with polling this bad…he’s never going to win a referendum on Trump.

  24. michael reynolds says:

    New Monmouth poll. Hillary by 7, a point higher with likelies and in swing states. 60% of voters say it’s important to stop Trump. And all these numbers came from surveys in the field after Orlando.

    You know the crazy dance Walter Huston does in Treasure of the Sierra Madre when they finally find gold? That’s the dance I’d be doing right now, if I danced.

    God bless Trump’s utter stupidity. All he had to do was express sympathy for Orlando, wait 24 hours and then dial it up to about an 8. There’s a better than even chance he’d have seen a bump, and had he followed that bump with anything remotely adult, he’d have won the day.

    But, nope. Psychopaths don’t do sympathy, and Trump dials everything up to 11. And now he’s firing Lewandowski and presumably ready to start listening to campaign pros. Well, too late, Donald even if you somehow managed to discipline yourself. Public perception is setting like a Jell-O mold. Soon it will be concrete.

  25. JohnMcC says:

    @grumpy realist: Politico reports that the Trump University lawsuit is being expanded to charge Mr Trump under RICO.

    And this morning on RCP, a certain attorney named Ben-Venisti (who should know) explains that Sec’ty Clinton’s email server does not rise to the level of ‘scandal’.

    So who is it exactly that might find the FBI ending their campaign prematurely?

  26. grumpy realist says:

    @JohnMcC: Snerk!

    There’s also this. The Potemkin village-of-riches set up around Trump looks to be getting its walls blown apart, one by one. (Click the linky to the Forbes article as well. It’s devastating.)

    Basically, the reason Trump is acting like a cheap, counterfeit Vuitton handbag sidewalk seller is because he IS a cheap, counterfeit Vuitton handbag sidewalk seller. There ain’t no billions. There ain’t no immense $3B worth attached to Trumpy’s name. He really is, as one comment dubbed him, “the Cheeto Hindenburg.”

    Hell, at this point I doubt he’s worth $10 Million.

  27. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @gVOR08: “The Republican Party has to be slapped into growing up and realizing that a decade or two in the wilderness is a small price to pay for their souls.”

    Alas, I’m afraid that we’re looking at the soul of the GOP at this moment. Donald Trump is who they are and they will come back firm in the conviction that their loss was just a marketing problem. They just need a better spokesperson–a true conservative.

  28. michael reynolds says:

    @grumpy realist:

    This is really telling. He’s got 2.4 million in the campaign chest? Million with an ‘m?’

    With poll numbers dropping the real billionaires are not going to want to book passage on the Trumptanic. His base doesn’t have the money and his operation can’t get it from them. He can either come up with the cash himself, borrow, or lie back and enjoy the ass-reaming Hillary’s going to give him.

    Meanwhile, if the Trump brand was a stock he’d be delisted.

  29. grumpy realist says:

    @michael reynolds: I wonder if Trump started this whole thing thinking he could quietly grift several millions into his pockets without anyone noticing, the whole rocket went up, and now he’s in the situation of being the guy getting caught in the whorehouse with his pants around his ankles as the reporters barge in.

  30. dmichael says:

    @Facebones: A modest proposal for a change to your Demo ad: “Kelly Ayotte/Mark Kirk/Ron Johnson wants you to vote for this man for President.” By the way, I read where Kirk is saying now that he doesn’t support Trump.
    To Michael Reynolds: Please oh please, do a dance and post it on YouTube (although I would leave out the “you’re so dumb” statements).

  31. stonetools says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:

    Alas, I’m afraid that we’re looking at the soul of the GOP at this moment. Donald Trump is who they are and they will come back firm in the conviction that their loss was just a marketing problem. They just need a better spokesperson–a true conservative.

    Yup. Cruz 2020!!

  32. MarkedMan says:

    How much money is Trump worth? I admit I don’t know how to judge. If someone is worth $10B how liquid should we expect them to be? Should they be expected to come up with $200M on relatively short notice?

    But it would appear that he is having a lot of trouble coming up with more than $40M (and I wonder how much of the $40M was his famous “in-kind” contributions). Given that, I gotta figure he is either worth at least an order of magnitude less than he claims (likely), or he is a miser and can’t bring himself to part with hard cash. The difference between a miser and someone who is tight with money is the difference between an alcoholic and someone who likes a few drinks. In both cases the habit is causing them to significantly under-perform with respect to their potential. Given the penny ante money grubbing BS he’s been involved in and his phony baloney charitable “donations”, I think the man has a real problem.

    I’ve always felt Trump’s true net worth was south of $1B. I’m increasingly thinking he also is a miser.

  33. gVOR08 says:

    @grumpy realist: May well be something like that. A remake of The Producers. Figured if he lost none of the small donors would audit the books too carefully.

  34. Pch101 says:

    At the end of the day, this is a two-party system, and I suspect that most voters will do what they usually do and make either-or choices, including a good deal of lesser-of-two-evils voting.

    I would expect both parties to face potential popular vote issues with low turnout, and for the GOP to possibly face above-average defection rates to the Dems, particularly among female Republicans. We may end up with similar results to the 2012 map, but with lower overall turnout coupled with a modest uptick in GOP defectors that helps Clinton to gain a point or two in the popular vote while still failing to win a popular vote landslide. Low turnout traditionally favors Republicans, but this may prove to be an exception.

  35. Andre Kenji says:

    @grumpy realist: The worst thing is that everyone remembers Carly Fiorina and Linda MacMahon spending like crazy trying to win a Senate Seat. MacMahon spent 100 million dollars in two Senate races. That´s chump charge for a multibillionaire, and that would solve most of Trump´s financial problems.

  36. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @MarkedMan:

    How much money is Trump worth?

    Based on the financial reports I’ve seen be leaked, a fair estimate is around the $4.5 to $5 billion range. In terms of liquidity, less than $200 million liquid.

  37. Kylopod says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Psychopaths don’t do sympathy

    Psychopaths don’t experience sympathy, but many psychopaths are quite adept at faking it. There are a lot of psychopathic politicians, and nearly all of them would know the proper way to behave after a public tragedy, and what are the right words to say. What’s unusual about Trump isn’t just his narcissism, it’s his inability (or lack of interest) in doing anything to hide that trait.

  38. grumpy realist says:

    @HarvardLaw92: Except that I can’t see someone with even (only) $200M in liquid assets would be playing around with some of the penny-ante stuff that Trump has dealt with. Trump Vodka? Trump Steaks?

    He’s acting like someone with 500$ in the bank having to pay a debt of $5000 and grasping wildly at any possible income stream.

    Of course, this IS the guy who originally wanted to line the airplanes used in Trump Airlines with marble…..

  39. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @grumpy realist:

    You’d have to know him. As I’ve noted before, his single greatest strength has always been force of ego and the associated capacity for self-promotion, but it’s also his greatest weakness. He’s gotten to the point where having his name on something becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for him – “See! Everybody wants me. Everybody’s clamoring to have my name on their thing, because my name is golden.” As tacky and ill-advised as these ventures were (and believe me, there have been a few who were willing to point that out to him), he doesn’t care that they’ll likely never generate a material cent. It’s about the Donald Trump Show. He’s essentially a Kardashian with a great deal more money, and always has been.

    I’ll note as well that he has always been good at claiming the spotlight while getting other people to foot the majority of the bill. As to how leveraged he is, I can’t (or won’t) speak to that. I will say that $200 million liquid isn’t as large as it sounds when you live the way that he does. It’s pretty clear that being president isn’t nearly as important to him as preserving his standard of living is. The short version of that is that you shouldn’t expect him to inject much of his own money into this campaign – at least not without an ironclad guarantee from the party / donor-class to make him whole – blustering about his wealth notwithstanding.

  40. C. Clavin says:

    @HarvardLaw92:
    I don’t know…there is a lot of reporting out there that says those numbers are bogus too.
    Terribly inflated values for golf courses (notoriously low income streams) and other properties, etc.
    And it keeps getting reported that he gets a tax break for people who make < $500,000 a year.
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2016/06/07/donald-trump-still-receiving-tax-break-meant-for-homeowners-making-under-500000-a-year/#1e4d88372ac1

  41. wr says:

    @Andrew: “Yet, I wonder the type of response that would get from the same people if, let us say, President Obama said it?”

    You don’t really have to wonder. A WHITE Democratic president dared to suggest almost 40 years ago that America wasn’t as great as it might be and Republicans STILL call him a traitor for it.

  42. Ebenezer_Arvigenius says:

    And it keeps getting reported that he gets a tax break for people who make < $500,000 a year.

    If you have a halfway decent tax lawyer “meant for” is not a relevant category 😛

  43. Andre Kenji says:

    Trump does not need to spend 100 million like Linda McMahon did in two Senate Races. He could be spending some million dollars there and there while he raise donations. He definitely does not sound like a billionaire doing what he is doing.

  44. Pete S says:

    I take issue with the headline. Considering his loathsome personality, ridiculous public statements, nonexistent policy knowledge and well established record as a scam artist his numbers are distressingly high. We don’t visit the States all that often but I assume you need to give any car with a Trump bumper sticker lots of extra room on the road in case their poor analytical skills transfer to driving?

  45. Grumpy Realist says:

    @HarvardLaw92: which means he’s probably really up the creek. I have no doubt but that the RNC would be quite happy to use Trump’s calling card to grift money from the Trumpenproletariat, but they’re going to want to use it in downstream races, rather than hand it over to Trump.

    Why am I reminded of The Pardoner’s Tale from Chaucer when looking at all this?

  46. Dazedandconfused says:

    A humorous but nonetheless fairly accurate analogy for what the Republican Party is experiencing with Trump.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_Jdts5rL0

    He’s doing everything he can to get the helmet pulled off at the convention, he really is. He simply can’t quit for reasons others have already mentioned in this thread.

  47. Jenos Idanian says:

    The best example of this can be seen in the fact that the Clinton campaign, along with at least one of its supporting SuperPACs is about to unleash more than $100 million in negative ads against Trump in battleground states, while Trump’s campaign has virtually no money with which to counter such an advertising blitz.

    Gosh, what happened to all those people who complained about big money as a corrosive influence on politics, and how SuperPACs were such a threat to democracy? Gee, I miss those idealists…

  48. Jenos Idanian says:

    Let’s follow the bouncing dollar signs: Big Media says the candidate that gives the most money to Big Media tends to win the elections. Big Media reports that Hillary and her totally-not-coordinating-with-her-campaign-because-that-would-be-illegal SuperPACs are preparing to give Big Media nine figures worth of money, but Donald Trump isn’t planning on coming anywhere near that much for Big Media.

    Both candidates treat Big Media like total crap, but Hillary gives Big Media big money, while Trump gives Big Media big ratings, which means Big Media can charge more for ads. But with Hillary, it’s a lot more direct, and they don’t have to work for it.

    Gee, I wonder who Big Media is going to support in the election? Probably the candidate they’ve been supporting all along, and the one who’s about to give Big Media over $100 million dollars.

  49. JohnMcC says:

    @Jenos Idanian: My silly friend, does that imply you might be in a wagering mood in regards to some aspect of the November results? I’d put up a bottle of Blanton’s bourbon that Mr Trump gets less than 199 electors. Feeling lucky, punk?

  50. JohnMcC says:

    @michael reynolds: Finished this blog, turned my screen to the NYTimes and — Mr Trump’s most recent FEC filing says he started June with $1.3M. Let me be the first to set your dancing feet a-flyin’.

  51. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    Preparing your excuses already?

  52. Mikey says:

    @anjin-san:

    Preparing your excuses already?

    It’s typical conservative orthodoxy that the media’s in the tank for the Democrats.

    In reality, Trump’s candidacy owes its success to this point almost entirely to the media’s willingness to repeat and amplify everything he says. And in fact, media coverage to this point has overwhelmingly favored Trump and been overwhelmingly negative toward Clinton.

    The contradiction between these two things is elided in favor of comforting lies that soothe the cognitive dissonance. Lies like “the media’s in the tank for Hillary.” And when Trump gets absolutely slaughtered in November, it won’t be because he’s the worst major-party candidate in American history, it’ll be the eeeeevil liberal media’s fault.

  53. Jenos Idanian says:

    @JohnMcC: My silly friend, does that imply you might be in a wagering mood in regards to some aspect of the November results?

    My clueless compatriot, you so utterly misunderstand me that it must be deliberate. The conventional wisdom around here is that Hillary’s election is a sure thing. My disagreement with the Usual Gang Of Idiots ™ does not mean that I believe that Trump has a lock; I think that this election is so unprecedented that pretty much anything could chappen between now and November, and anyone who is convinced that they know the results now is a fool.

    So why in hell would I want to simply mirror the opinion I think is so foolish?

  54. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Mikey: What? A study from Harvard (where the faculty, last I heard, was 99% Democratic), says that the Democratic candidate has been treated poorly? Let me show you my flabbergasted face.

    On the flip side, here’s an article — with actual, recent examples and everything — that shows ways that the media has been going after Trump, and treating Hillary with kid gloves. One little taste (including one example where Doug, our host, played along with them:

    Donald Trump says enough dumb stuff on his own, but the MSM still feels it needs to misreport and misrepresent him. When he – quite correctly – suggested that there was something weird about Obama’s inability to place the blame for radical Muslim terrorism on radical Muslim terrorists, this became “Trump Says Obama Supports Terrorists.” When he pointed out some troops (Trump says he was referring to Iraqi troops) in the Middle East were corrupt (sadly, some were), this became “Trump Calls All American Soldiers Thieves.” If Trump says he inhales oxygen, the headline will be “Trump Admits He’s Just Like Hitler.”

    But with Hillary or Obama, it’s the reverse. At best, they report on facts that manifestly demonstrate her guilt of multiple felonies and misdemeanors, yet make sure to undercut their own reporting by asserting she can’t possibly be indicted. The media can’t shut up about Trump U, but the $16 million the Bill and Hillary Graftatron 2016 nabbed from Laureate U? Apparently all the news isn’t fit to print.

    The MSM is shameless. For example, when some gay Democrat radical Muslim slaughters LGBT clubgoers and then Anderson Cooper attacks the (Republican) Florida attorney general for not being sufficiently open to same sex marriage, it’s pretty clear whose team CNN is on. That’s the same CNN that cut off my mic when I dared point out Hillary’s active enabling of Bill Clinton’s sexual abuses instead of being outraged by Trump using the word “schlonged.”

    The one critique I have of that piece (so far) is that it mentioned Laureate University, but it didn’t touch upon the Clinton Global Initiative University. Such a wonderful parallel to the Trump University story, yet no one seems to want to touch that…

  55. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian: Hey Stupid — I don’t know what right wing cesspool you yanked that long quote from, but the LA Times article you linked to says exactly the opposite of what you’re claiming.

  56. Jenos Idanian says:

    @wr: Good lord, you actually had something relevant to say! Yes, I posted the wrong link, and thank you for calling my attention to it. Here’s the right link.

    The LA Times link was Mikey’s, and I had it open along with Schlichter’s, but copied the URL from the wrong tab. And thanks again for confirming you didn’t actually look at Mikey’s link, but simply zeroed in on my comment for answering, once again affirming your obsession with me.

  57. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian: “And thanks again for confirming you didn’t actually look at Mikey’s link, but simply zeroed in on my comment for answering, once again affirming your obsession with me.”

    What the hell are you talking about? You posted right-wing gibberish, along with a link to the LA Times. I followed that link to see if any actual news organization anywhere in the country would publish such blithering nonsense and discovered that you had “made a mistake” — or, more likely, deliberately posted the wrong link hoping that people would assume this vomit of lies came from somewhere legitimate.

    But now we can see that what you’re citing is not an “article” — it’s a blog post by some assclown whose claim to fame is that he was “personally recruited to write about politics by Andrew Breitbart,” a hack so loathesome that had John Donne met him, he would have had to change his line about every death diminishing him.

    It’s not surprise that a full-time internet troll who worships Trump would also tongue-bathe the scummiest liars on the internet — short of cheering the murders of innocent black kids, it seems to be your favorite thing in the world.

  58. Mikey says:

    @Jenos Idanian: That’s not an article, it’s an opinion piece.

    And of course the unbelievable irony inherent in you opening your response to me with an assertion that academic research conducted by Harvard isn’t credible because the faculty votes for Democrats, then trying to prove your own point by linking to a shitty opinion piece on one of the most right-wing sites on the internet…I can’t believe even you would do something that inane.

    But somehow you just did.

  59. humanoid.panda says:

    As for myself, I can’t believe how brave and internet savvy are the patriotic citizen journalists who hacked into the New York Times CMS and published all that stuff about Hillary’s emails, and then did the same for the Washington Post to get the stories about the Clinton Foundation out.

  60. Jenos Idanian says:

    @wr: t’s not surprise that a full-time internet troll who worships Trump would also tongue-bathe the scummiest liars on the internet

    581.

    Jesus H. Christ, just get laid already and stop inflicting your sexual obsessions on everyone else. You are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history.

  61. Jenos Idanian says:

    @Mikey: Yes, it’s an opinion piece. And unlike yours, it’s noted as such.

    Did you notice that it also offered actual examples?

  62. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian: Oh, Little Jenos, your total lack of self-awareness grows direr every day. If you think that people have to read quasi-sexual longing into your endless paens to those you find more manly than yourself — generally those who have used a gun to murder some unarmed teenager, but also a “billionaire” who uses his money and power to kick down at the poor and helpless — then you really need to start reading your own collected works.

    I’d like to think you’d be shocked by what you saw if you actually read a couple of your own messages, but I doubt that you are capable of comprehending even the most obvious subtext.

  63. Jenos Idanian says:

    @wr: 580 to go.

    I’ve set a number where I will complain the the site owners for ongoing, persistent sexual harassment by you. I won’t tell you the number, but I’m guessing you’ll hit it in less than a week.

  64. DrDaveT says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    Did you notice that it also offered actual examples?

    Yes. I also noticed that it made them up. For example:

    When [Trump]– quite correctly – suggested that there was something weird about Obama’s inability to place the blame for radical Muslim terrorism on radical Muslim terrorists

    …which deftly baits and switches from the irrelevant shibboleth “did not use the phrase radical Islam to the much stronger (and incorrect) “refusal to place the blame for radical Muslim terrorism on radical Muslim terrorists.”

  65. Mikey says:

    @Jenos Idanian: Mine wasn’t an opinion piece, it was a news story that reported the results of an academic study.

    Contrary to conservative orthodoxy and victim complexes, the two are not the same thing. Typical that you try to denigrate the academic by equating it to the idiotic.

  66. Jenos Idanian says:

    @DrDaveT: Jesus, do you even read the postings on this site before you comment?

  67. Matt says:

    @Moosebreath:Meanwhile BREITBART NEWS is toting the report as being a good thing for Trump!!

  68. JohnMcC says:

    @Jenos Idanian: Punk’s not feelin’ lucky.

  69. DrDaveT says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    Jesus, do you even read the postings on this site before you comment?

    OK, is this is a trick question? Because the link you included makes my point, not yours.

    Show me where Obama said (or hinted, or implied) that radical Muslim terrorists are not responsible for radical Muslim terrorism. Until you can, your ‘source’ is making sh!t up.

  70. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Jenos Idanian:

    I’ve set a number where I will complain the the site owners for ongoing, persistent sexual harassment by you. I won’t tell you the number, but I’m guessing you’ll hit it in less than a week.

    Jesus H. Christ, just get laid already and stop inflicting your sexual obsessions on everyone else. You are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history.

    “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”