AND SHE STILL LOSES ANYWAY

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll is out, and – after months of unrelentingly negative reporting by both entities…along with most other mainstream media…Donald Trump’s approval level is at 42%.  The Post, not at all surprisingly, is happy to report that this is  “the lowest recorded at this stage of a presidency dating to Dwight Eisenhower.”

So what does this mean?  Not very much, given that this poll has always shown Trump to have low favorability.  In fact, the three polls it ran in the month prior to last year’s election had him at 37%. 39% and 38% – all lower than where it has him today.

But there is another issue here:  if the election were held today, how would Donald Trump do against Hillary Clinton?  Has his supposedly negative performance turned the corner, made people see the light, and resulted in buyers’ remorse?

Uh…..no.

This poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead by 3% in the last week before the election – very close to her actual 2% popular vote “victory”*.

And today?  The poll shows Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton, 43% to 40%.

In other words, as badly as the poll suggests Mr. Trump is doing as President, he would still take down their goddess, Ms. Clinton – even though most coverage by the Post, ABC and media in general has been positive/sympathetic to her.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere for both media and the Democrat Party – one which I see little indication either is learning from.

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* “Victory” is put in quotation marks, because, though Hillary supporters love to make the claim that this proves she won the election, it, of course, is not true.

It is not just that presidential elections are won with a majority of the electoral vote, not the popular vote.  It is also that, because this is true, neither candidate campaigns to win the popular vote, therefore the results mean nothing.

Illustratively, does anyone doubt that Donald Trump would have campaigned long and hard in California – with about 1/8th of the entire U.S. population – if the popular vote was what counted?  Instead he conceded it to Ms. Clinton, along with New York State for the same reason.

Nope, this would have been run entirely different if the national popular vote determined who won.  Therefore the “winner” of that vote is meaningless; an artifact.