More Americans view Donald Trump favorably today than when he swept into office, which, coupled with the 11 million Americans who voted for Trump despite having an unfavorable view of him, indicates a good chance he would be re-elected today.

The daily reports of Trump’s “historically high unfavorable ratings” (38% favorable, 57% unfavorable in latest Gallup) ignores the most obvious of all polling facts—his unfavorable ratings were much higher when he won the election (34%, 62% in the same poll). If Gallup is accurate, then 85 million election day voters with an unfavorable opinion of President Trump went to the polls and at least 11 million of them still voted for him over Hillary Clinton and all other options.

Never in history have so many Americans voted for the agenda of a president, without liking the candidate himself.

  1. Trump won Florida when African-American voters gave him a chance by giving Hillary Clinton the lowest percentage of their vote for any Democrat in decades (82%).
  2. Evangelical voters were horrified by his explicit language, but voted for him by a record 81-16 margin after his description of partial birth abortion in the third debate while Hillary Clinton defended the practice.
  3. Working class conservatives who do not typically like New York billionaires read the Breitbart report that Hedge Fund money lined up $123 million to $19,000 in favor of Clinton, and they understood which candidate was the choice of the insiders bailing out the big four banks at their expense. No they were not “stupid” or “deplorable,” rather their common sense saw through the liberal intellectuals who were selling them a bill of goods.

In the much talked about New York Times best seller Devil’s Bargain, my quote that actually referred to a high school attended by both Steve Bannon and myself seems to apply to many voters today: “We were the blue collar guys. They were the rich snobs … (They’d say we’d work for them) And we’d punch ’em in the nose. (By economic conservatism, we) … didn’t mean rich guys protecting their tax breaks. It meant, for all of us that were working class, that you worked a job. It was that kind of conservatism that we believed really helped the average worker.”

On Election Day, the 11 million voters who decided they did not like Trump collectively said, “Trump is an SOB, but he is our SOB and our cause is more important than the messenger.” (Note: For stat nerds who want to check these numbers, 63 million or 46.1 percent, voted for Trump, more than the 34 percent with a favorable impression plus the 4 percent with no opinion to get him to 38 percent of the vote, meaning 8 percent or 11 million voters voted for Trump despite an unfavorable view of Trump.)

On September 9, I sent an email to almost every media outlet in the country predicting almost exactly that Donald Trump would lose the popular vote by three percentage points, and become president with at least 290 Electoral Votes. I did this by looking at the state-by-state poll run by the Washington Post and how each state would likely adjust based on the reaction to Trump’s message at the Republican National Convention. Likewise, pollsters are now using data that actually shows Trump ahead of his pace from last election—and yet they spin the news as pointing to a tough re-election to once again give a false sense of security to Trump opponents.

Americans now give him better favorable marks by 4-5 points over when they elected him, and coupled with the 11 million Trump voters who do not like Trump but voted for him, it can be argued this puts Trump on pace to pull out the popular vote by 1 to 2 points (despite getting blown out in California and New York), and thus win by at least as big an Electoral Margin.

The flip side of the argument;

  1. Head-to-head polls of hypothetical opponents show Trump losing, but these are normally flawed because the would-be opponent will face attacks and vetting.
  2. Hillary Clinton is no longer the opponent and other factors continued to change in a tumultuous week, which is also true but many Democrats are leading with an issue that is much less popular than Hillary Clinton —the removal of Confederate statues as though they will come back to life like in Night at the Museum. A new NPR polls indicates only 27 percent agree with these Democrats, while 62 percent instead side with Trump that they should remain, and this 27/62 is much worse than Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable on election day. Perhaps of more concern to Democrats is that a wide majority of Latinos and even slightly more African-Americans (40/44) side with Trump.
  3. Americans are tired of nuclear politics (the very reason we formed www.takeback.org and took to the airwaves to educate the public on the benefits of political reform), another fair point except for Antifa’s violent tactics, including training on how to mace and club anyone who attends a speech by the president of the United States.

In summary, Trump wrapped up the week of August 19 substantially ahead of where he was last election day and some of the intensity of the push for impeachment and action by the special prosecutor stems from the understanding of many who oppose Trump that he does not necessarily need to be popular to win.

John Pudner is Executive Director of www.takeback.org, a non-profit home for conservatives and any other American seeking true political reform to include encouraging more small donors and stopping illicit foreign money impacting our government. His recent Fox News interview can be viewed here. Organization listed for identification purposes only, views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the organization.