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Pollsters dumbfounded by Trump
The Hill ^ | August 27, 2015 | Ben Kamisar

Posted on 08/27/2015 6:51:25 AM PDT by sevinufnine

Polling experts agree on one thing when it comes to Donald Trump’s presidential run: They’ve never seen anything like it. His dominance of the Republican presidential race is forcing experienced political hands to question whether everything they know about winning the White House is wrong.

While political scientists and other experts continue to insist Trump will not win the Republican nomination, he’s converted at least one high-profile skeptic.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz had dismissed Trump from the start, and declared after the first presidential debate that his campaign was doomed.

But after convening a focus group Monday evening where Trump supporters showed an unflappable allegiance, Luntz changed his tune.

“This is real. I’m having trouble processing,” he said, according to Time.

“I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them,” he added.

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016polls; polls; trump
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The shocks have come in quick succession, with the businessman first rocketing to the top of national polls, and then taking double-digit leads in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In another act of political magic, Trump managed to flip his favorability rating from negative to positive in one poll during the span of a month — a feat that Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray called “astounding.”

“That defies any rule in presidential politics that I’ve ever seen,” Murray, the director Monmouth’s Polling Institute, told The Hill.

Trump’s favorability rose from 20 percent to 52 percent among Republican voters between July and August, Monmouth found.

While a later CNN/ORC poll did not find a similar shift in Trump’s favorability, the Monmouth data was yet another sign that he is a candidate to be reckoned with.

“Throw out the rulebook when it comes to Trump, that’s not even in the parameters of what we see as unusual,” Murray said.

Trump’s dominance of the race has flustered the Republican field, with many of the candidates trying their best to bring him back to earth.

But as the attacks on Trump have intensified, so has his level of support.

Polls released Tuesday show Trump lapping the field in New Hampshire, where he leads his nearest Republican rival by 24 percentage points. The story is the same in South Carolina, where the latest poll gave him a 15-point edge.

1 posted on 08/27/2015 6:51:25 AM PDT by sevinufnine
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To: sevinufnine

No matter how they slant the questions to elicit a negative response, people love The Donald.


2 posted on 08/27/2015 6:54:05 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: sevinufnine

I’ve not seen such intensity in a Republican candidate since Reagan who I voted for 1st time I was able @ 18 yrs. old.

Reagan had hutzpah. Said what he meant straight from the heart and meant what he said without backing down or making excuses. It’s what I like about Trump. The more I hear him speak, the more I like him because I detest political correctness along with “born and bred” politicians (and so does he).


3 posted on 08/27/2015 6:54:33 AM PDT by sevinufnine (A moderately bad man knows he is not very good. A thoroughly bad man thinks he's alright. C.S. Lewis)
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To: sevinufnine

The well-funded, slimy, lying, sell-out, Uniparty professional pol model is threatened by Trump.


4 posted on 08/27/2015 6:55:26 AM PDT by Iron Munro (We may be paranoid but that doesn't mean they aren't really after us)
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To: Iron Munro

LOL....now go ahead and tell me how you REALLY feel! :>)


5 posted on 08/27/2015 6:56:46 AM PDT by sevinufnine (A moderately bad man knows he is not very good. A thoroughly bad man thinks he's alright. C.S. Lewis)
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To: Iron Munro

The GOPe needs to wake up. If it isn’t Trump, and it’s not Cruz, it’s the Rat who will win because all those Trump and Cruz voters WILL stay home.

I held my nose in 2008, I took a long shower to clean off the filth in 2012. If it happens again in 2016, I will plant more veggies, buy more ammo, store more water and watch the end of America unfold.


6 posted on 08/27/2015 6:58:16 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (2016 - Jews for Cruz)
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To: sevinufnine

Here are some facts of life. Pollsters don’t do this stuff for free. They get clients who want to know how we feel about something. They in their expertise and methodical practices set about to create and conduct the most unbiased and scientific accounting of that very question....right?

They get paid money for that, and their prior track record of ‘being right’ allows them to get more money....right?

So. To get and keep business, they have to give the client what they want, or at least a good enough story with good news to keep them in it for the long haul.....

It’s no wonder that right before elections, most polls seem to converge on the real answer - IOW, near the truth. They have to preserve their reputations (those final predictions) for future suckers, errrr clients.

The problem is now that there isn’t a really good way to poll a malaise, a desperation, a disgust - outright anger against the political machine of the status quo. All we want right now is to lash out and gouge somebody, something and hope we draw blood in some symbolic way.

It isn’t Trump that is the conundrum here. The problem is the status quo has lost the base - pissed on them and thrown them away for some illegal Mexican. You can’t blame it on Trump. He’s just the match that will light a fire the likes of which the status quo has not yet seen.


7 posted on 08/27/2015 6:58:51 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: sevinufnine
forcing experienced political hands to question whether everything they know about winning the White House is wrong

These are the ones who gave us McCain and Romney. Do they have to ask?

8 posted on 08/27/2015 6:59:58 AM PDT by Genoa (Starve the beast.)
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To: sevinufnine

The Republican “leadership” has been stabbing the backs of conservatives for too long, and now they’re surprised by the strength of Trump’s candidacy? The GOP is truly clueless. People are revolting against the GOP and they refuse to see it.


9 posted on 08/27/2015 7:00:06 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: sevinufnine

Limbaugh says to understand Trump, just listen to last five or ten minutes of his Iowa speech...he CONNECTS with the people at the rally, let’s them know he is moved that they have come out and stuff...it’s genuine and they know it...so from that point on it does not matter what other people say about the Donald they are with him...made sense to me. I have connected to him because he reminds me a lot of Reagan.
Freegards
LEX


10 posted on 08/27/2015 7:00:28 AM PDT by lexington minuteman 1775
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To: sevinufnine

Ahh..but the GOPe, in their usual Soviet style, is trying to keep Trump off the ballot in SC by making him swear allegiance to the Republican Party. This is the Old Elite that passed the convention rule in 2012 that the millionaires in the party can pick the nominee behind closed doors at the 2016 convention, because they feared the TEA Party conservatives. They never dreamed Donald Trump would steamroll them and have the money to laugh in their faces. They have been revealed as the frauds they are.

It is really important that Trump preserve the possibility of running on a third party ticket. He may be the first third party president, and that would be the revolution in American politics that we desperately need.


11 posted on 08/27/2015 7:01:34 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: sevinufnine

Looks to me like the other hopefuls should have come out swinging hard on illegal immigration. What a pity. I wonder why they didn’t? Seems like they don’t know the American public at all.


12 posted on 08/27/2015 7:01:53 AM PDT by The Toll
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To: Texas Eagle
No teleprompter = Connecting with the American people.

It's really that simple. Saying what's on your mind is a good thing.

13 posted on 08/27/2015 7:02:03 AM PDT by blackdog (There is no such thing as healing, only a balance between destructive and constructive forces.)
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To: Starboard

Don’t forget how many scoffed at Reagan when he entered the ring. They didn’t mind him being governor of the “Hollywood State”, but a number were horrified of an actor being president. Well....seems the last few decades it’s all we’ve had to choose from anyhow! So now a successful business man. Why not?


14 posted on 08/27/2015 7:03:25 AM PDT by sevinufnine (A moderately bad man knows he is not very good. A thoroughly bad man thinks he's alright. C.S. Lewis)
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To: sevinufnine

“Shaky-Legs” Luntz, what a joke. ...GOPe hack.


15 posted on 08/27/2015 7:03:58 AM PDT by TexasCajun (#BlackViolenceMatters)
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To: txrefugee

Donald needs to turn the tables on the RNC & GOPe, making them swear to support him should he become the Republican nominee.


16 posted on 08/27/2015 7:05:57 AM PDT by TexasCajun (#BlackViolenceMatters)
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To: blackdog

“No teleprompter = Connecting with the American people.”

>>> I saw that in the news yesterday and told my husband. Great he said that! Not only poking at NObama, but insisting candidates speak from their minds instead of a script. Absolutely love it.


17 posted on 08/27/2015 7:06:09 AM PDT by sevinufnine (A moderately bad man knows he is not very good. A thoroughly bad man thinks he's alright. C.S. Lewis)
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To: Gaffer

Yes, they lost the base with the crap they pulled in Mississipi. When we said we won’t forget MS - we darn well meant it. Then McConnell says he will crush the Tea Party. IF that wasn’t enough to make your blood boil, I don’t know what is. He and Boehner then lied to us and kissed obama’s butt every step of the way. And, yet, these buffoons still don’t get it. They think their money and power will get their establishment candidate elected. I don’t think so - we aren’t asleep any more.


18 posted on 08/27/2015 7:07:39 AM PDT by Catsrus (The Great Wall of Trump - coming to a southern border near you.)
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To: TexasCajun

Yeah, like the word of the GOPe would mean anything. They are hopeless liars.


19 posted on 08/27/2015 7:09:05 AM PDT by HerrBlucher (Abortion is murder)
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To: TexasCajun

He’s already “running” the tables.

They’re just too dumb to figure it out yet.


20 posted on 08/27/2015 7:09:28 AM PDT by Califreak (Hope and Che'nge is killing U.S. Feel the Trump-mentum!(insert ireallysupportCruzdisclaimerhere/))
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