The GOP — and the press — need to pretend Trump can win, which is why Rasmussen exists
Tonight, it happens. Unless the polls are wrong, a guy who has called for the deportations of families of U.S. citizens — including the actual U.S. citizen — will become the presumptive GOP nominee. And as soon as that happens, most of the Republican Party will begin to pretend that this lying, scamming, tyrant-loving aspiring war criminal is just your typical Republican nominee for president.
And he can win, they’ll scream, just check out this poll!
And the poll they’ll be pointing to is this poll:
Yep, Rasmussen.
The same pollster that told us Mitt Romney was ahead by 2 percent in May of 2012. Because it over-sampled Republicans, Rasmussen’s polls found Mitt on the way to the White House for most of the year and lead to the “unskewing” phenomenon that left Republicans shocked when Obama was easily re-elected by more than 5 million votes.
This poll is even worse than the ones that had the right dreaming of President Romney governing from his treadmill desk in the Oval Office, as Allahpundit of the conservative blog Hot Air explained:
I wouldn’t bank too heavily on this poll, though. Last week they found Trump and Clinton dead even at 38 percent; now they find Trump ahead by two if, er, voters aren’t given the option of staying home, which of course is what many will do in November. If you’re going to model an election where no one stays home, you might as well model one where, say, every woman in America stays home. Neither one’s going to happen.
In the dozens of polls conducting pitting Trump against Clinton this year only 3 have had Trump up.
She leads by an average of 6.2 percent, which isn’t to say he can’t win.
He’s ruthless, reckless and willing to say anything. It’s possible that he could find some way to overcome the worst approval rating of any human candidate for president. Or it’s much more likely that he’ll lose all 19 states Republicans have lost since 1992 and Florida, where he’s down by more than 10 percent, which would mean the election’s over. From there, he could go on to turn states like Arizona, Georgia and even Utah into swing states for the first time in generations.
Despite the overwhelming obstacles any Republican faces – let alone what a Republican who only appeals to women who see themselves in the fourth-wife demographic faces – conservatives will need to pretend he can win. And the press needs to pretend this race is close. These conjoined phenomenon mean that the unskewing of 2012 and chronic Trump enabling of 2016 will continue on until at least November 8.
