Itâs about the polls and hereâs the issue
Trump has supporters who will vote for him no matter what he does. Trump himself has said he could shoot someone in the middle of a crowded street and still have supporters.
So those supporters LOVE Trump and will show up no matter what happens. Then you have others who donât like either candidate, but weâre thinking they couldnât support Trump a week ago because of the sexual assault scandals.
As time passed those people began to care less about the scandal. Every time Trump manages to go a week without a new scandal everyone forgets about the last one and the old supporters will always be there either way.
Hillary doesnât have hard core supporters who love her and are super excited. Hillaryâs supporters are more âsheâs the best weâve gotâ. Also, liberal/progressive voters tend to be more idealistic so they donât like voting âno matter what?â
So a conservative might say âIâm not a racist myself, and I donât like the KKK, but the fact the KKK endorses Trump wonât stop me from voting for himâ.
A progressive might say âHillary Clinton has said and done problematic things, so even though voting for her is essential to protect the rights of oppressed groups Iâd feel better if I didnât vote for a problematic person so Iâm staying home.â
Trump knows this. Thatâs why his campaign strategy has been to make Hillary look bad to people wonât vote for him. Targeting black voters with Facebook content about things from the 90s (Trumpâs policies and Supreme Court would do harm now and Hillary would be better, but the focus is on her not being good enough).
Then unlike Trump, scandals donât happen and then go away after a week. Hillaryâs emails have been an issue since 2015 and no one wants to move on. They just keep hammering it, and any new development reaffirms the line that something really bad must have happened.
So Hillary goes from being 5 points ahead to one point behind. This isnât because Trump got more popular, he has the same white voters heâs always had but Clinton has lost support among the âlesser of two evils crowdâ.
The Republicans who didnât really want to support Trump are more willing to show up and vote to stop Hillary Clinton. The progressives are more likely to stay home or vote 3rd party because they donât want to support âthe systemâ or someone they feel isnât perfect.
Basically Trump is winning in the polls, and itâs not because more people are voting for him. Itâs because more people wonât for Hillary Clinton to stop Trump.
The choices are âGoodâ vs âTerribleâ And people are saying, Iâm not voting unless we get to pick something great. Except the the election isnât âno one wins, letâs change the system and have a do-overâ if people donât show up to vote, the person with the most votes win and you can bet the racists are showing up.
The reason to talk about this now, rather than next week, is so that maybe we can change things before itâs too late by encouraging people to vote.