To hear Donald Trump make the case for his candidacy is to be privy to a lot of rather shallow polling analysis. For a campaign that has refused to hire pollsters to message-test and gauge levels of support, Trump is keenly aware of his standing in public opinion surveys. “The campaign relies on those polls internally, as well as unscientific online opinion surveys conducted by websites like the Drudge Report, according to multiple people with knowledge of the campaign’s inner workings,” Politico reported over the weekend. If his high ranking in public polls seems to be Trump’s primary pitch to voters, it is also his go-to knock against his opponents. When asked if he had the requisite temperament to serve as commander-in-chief of the most powerful armed forces on Earth in the second presidential debate, the first words out of Trump’s mouth were to attack Rand Paul for (inaccurately) generating just “1 percent in the polls.” It is fair to say that Donald Trump has a poll fixation, which should mean that he is keenly aware of the scale of the challenge he will face in the coming weeks. As unlikable GOP candidates fall by the wayside, a more popular cast of rivals is rising. In the coming weeks, the celebrity candidate will find his previously successful campaign strategies losing their luster.
At some point after the second Republican debate, a bubble burst. Trump, who had maintained double-digit leads over his closest rival since early July, has been relegated to single-digit leads since mid-September. FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten observed that Trump lost an average of 3.1 points in polls following the second debate. “One cautionary note, though,” Enten added. “Polls after the first debate also found Trump falling, but that drop didn’t last.” Already, though, the dip in Trump’s backing is more pronounced and of a longer duration than the minor correction his numbers experienced in the wake of the August presidential debate.
The release of the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is indicative of the political troubles faced by a candidate whose support in the polls has become his campaign’s raison d’être. That poll found Trump securing the support of 21 percent of surveyed Republican voters to Dr. Ben Carson’s 20 percent – a statistical tie. By way of comparison, the last NBC/WSJ survey conducted from July 26th to the 30th found Carson polling at only 10 percent to Trump’s 19 percent. In that poll, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker registered in the double digits. Today, Walker is gone, Bush is fading into the woodwork, and Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina have surged into a position of prominence (both poll at 11 percent in the latest NBC/WSJ survey). A lot can change in eight weeks.
For the first time since his campaign erupted onto the political scene, Trump has found his prohibitive position as the race’s frontrunner threatened. It is perhaps only a matter of time before the first survey showing him modestly trailing an opponent explodes the conventional wisdom. Trump won’t acknowledge as much; there will always be a Drudge Report survey or a Zogby poll to which the candidate can point. But as the self-delusion of those assertions becomes more apparent to persuadable observers, Trump’s claims to enjoy broad popularity will lose their resonance. Stalled momentum will uniquely challenge a candidate whose appeal is based on “winning.”
So, how can Trump reclaim that momentum? In the wake of the first debate and his slide in the polls, the candidate went about attacking his fellow Republicans (and cable news hosts) aggressively. Trump’s campaign devoted an especially extensive amount of energy attacking Jeb Bush both personally and on policy. Bush, a candidate with consistently high unfavorability ratings among Republicans, was uniquely susceptible to those attacks. Trump will find replicating this feat far more difficult with figures like Rubio, Carson, and Fiorina. All are among the most popular figures in the GOP today.
The challenge that Trump is facing in his effort to diminish Rubio’s stature among Republicans was evident on Friday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C. After spending the previous week attacking the Florida senator for excessive perspiration and his conspicuous habit of drinking water, Trump took the stage at the Summit and immediately denounced Rubio as a “clown.” The unprovoked attack on the junior Florida senator was not well received; the crowd booed the boorish Trump, a fact he acknowledged by quickly pivoting to Rubio’s 2013 association with a group of legislators who sought to craft an immigration reform bill.
It makes sense that Republican voters would be protective of Rubio. They are fond of him. The most recent Quinnipiac University poll found Rubio draws a 66 percent favorability rating compared to just a 9 percent who have an unfavorable view of him. A subsequent Bloomberg survey conducted by the respected Selzer & Co. nearly replicated those results when it found Rubio with a 60 percent favorability rating.
Trump’s attacks on Carly Fiorina – ranging from substantive assaults on her record as a Hewlett-Packard executive to loutish insults about her appearance – are also landing with a thud. Fiorina has continued to rise in the polls even amid withering assaults from Trump. These barbs have failed to resonate among Republicans for the same reason that Rubio has been able to absorb the assaults on his person: she is popular. Bloomberg found 57 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning voters have a favorable view of Fiorina while 26 percent find her unfavorable. Quinnipiac found 67 percent of Republicans view her favorably while just 8 percent disagree.
Perhaps aware of this dynamic, Trump has declined to attack Ben Carson with the same passion he has denounced Fiorina and Rubio. In early September, after Carson questioned the feasibility of Trump’s sweeping deportation proposals and questioned the real estate mogul’s commitment to his faith, Trump declined to respond in kind despite his warnings that he would. It was a rare display of prudence on Trump’s part. 75 percent of surveyed Republicans view Carson favorably, according to Quinnipiac. 68 percent of GOP voters said the same in a Bloomberg poll.
Carson, Rubio, and Fiorina are by far the most popular figures running for the Republican nomination, and they are all surging into a competitive position in the polls. If you’re wondering where Trump stands in terms of his favorability, both of these recent polls found that only Rand Paul generates a higher unfavorability rating.
Trump’s two-pronged approach to the campaign, characterized by the circular argument that he is winning because he is leading in the polls and issuing no-holds-barred attacks on his competitors, may soon lose their efficacy. Trump must now confront his declining poll numbers and the rise of far more likable figures into positions of prominence. How he responds to this adversity may determine his viability as a candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
