For anyone who loved Donald Trump’s advance oral history of the impending apocalypse — the fancy new label for his Republican Convention speech — good news has arrived. Now that the dust has settled, and it looks like Trump’s approach was an effective one. Poor Ted Cruz may have wasted the most exciting moment of his political career for nothing. For even though the Washington Post has sounded unprecedented alarm bells, the public heart still wants what it wants.
An early instant voting poll already revealed how Trump’s doom-and-gloom approach was a smash hit, but a new poll from CNN/ORC claims that Trump has recovered his “bounce” in the days since the RNC’s conclusion. And the cable news network notes that such a post-convention rise hasn’t happened since 2000. Trump is currently leading with 44% against Clinton’s 39%. Gary “Wild Card” Johnson comes in at 9%, and Jill Stein hobbles in with 3%. Even more shocking — Trump hasn’t fared this well in a CNN poll since last September. Let’s find out what’s happening:
The convention helped Trump make strides in his personal image. A majority (52%) now say Trump is running for president for the good of the country rather than personal gain, just 44% say the same about Clinton. He’s increased the share who call him honest and trustworthy (from 38% to 43%), and who would be proud to have him as president (from 32% to 39%). And nearly half now say he’s in touch with the problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives (46% say so, 37% did before the convention).
Despite Democratic criticism of the Republican convention’s message as divisive, the percentage who say Trump will unite the country rather than divide it has increased to 42%, compared with 34% pre-convention.
Those polled also noted Clinton’s perceived lack of trustworthiness. This isn’t anything new, but these numbers don’t bode well while heading into a week-long event where the chair resigned on the day before the event begins. And although Bernie Sanders has called for unity and insisted that Trump must not win, anything could happen this week at the Democratic convention. Clinton will definitely need to make her speech great to land her own bounce, but one can bet that — unlike the case of Melania Trump — some anti-plagiarism software will be in the works.
(Via CNN)