Photo of Trump at Mobile, AL rally by Mark Wallheiser / Getty Images
Nate Silver, guru of polling analysis, writes in his Five Thirty-Eight blog that "Trump isn’t affected much by negative media
coverage — it may even help him. But a lack of media coverage
might be a different story.”
Throughout the summer, Trump has been the subject of as many Google searches and as much news coverage as all the other candidates combined. Silver continues:
"What’s interesting is how Trump seemed to go out of his way after the debate to ensure that he’d remain the center of attention, with his tirade against Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly . . . . [t]hat tended to drown out most of the coverage of whether, say, Fiorina or Kasich had gained momentum after the debate. . . .
Throughout the summer, Trump has been the subject of as many Google searches and as much news coverage as all the other candidates combined. Silver continues:
"What’s interesting is how Trump seemed to go out of his way after the debate to ensure that he’d remain the center of attention, with his tirade against Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly . . . . [t]hat tended to drown out most of the coverage of whether, say, Fiorina or Kasich had gained momentum after the debate. . . .
"Trump is . . . amazingly skilled at disrupting the conversation by any means necessary, including by drawing negative . . . attention to himself. . . .
"Is it sustainable? In the long run, probably not. . . . Sooner or later, the media will find another candidate’s story interesting. . . . But there’s not a lot of hard campaign news to dissect in August. . . . [T]hrowing a stink bomb whenever another story risks upstaging you, and you can remain at the center of the conversation, and atop the polls, for weeks at a time.”
From the partisan Republican side, Frank Luntz, conservative maven of polling and message, says that: among his supporters, "nothing disqualifies Trump. . . . If you wanted to take him down, I would not know how to do it."
Trump is a unique phenomenon personally, he has tapped into a deep vein of lost confidence in our government and in politicians, and he is brilliant in knowing how to manipulate and use the media to his advantage.
Frank Luntz thinks Trump could actually become the Republican nominee. I'm still holding to the idea that, with the non-Trump vote divided so many ways, we don't have a good picture of how broad his support really is. Is he anybody's second choice, when their candidate drops out? One thing we know is that, by far, he has the highest "unfavorable" ratings -- far higher than his "favorable." But so does Hillary Clinton.
But we need to remember this: In state primaries where the winner takes all the delegates, rather than apportioning them, Trump could win with his 28% of the vote. But Clinton beats him in a 1to 1; so does Bernie Sanders !!!!
Ralph
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