The Election Isn't Over Yet-- But It's Probably Too Late For Trumpanzee To Recover

Trumpanzee is looking at a John W. Davis-sized landslide

The Public Religion Research Institute released a poll over the weekend that isn't just bad news for Señor Trumpanzee, but looks like band news for the Republican Party going forward. If America was a country where only white people could vote-- a goal the GOP still works towards whenever they get a chance-- Trump would be OK and the Republican Party would be rocking from coast to coast. But it's 2016 and the U.S. is a far richer and more diverse country today that it was in the 19th Century. And that's why Trumpanzee and the bigoted message the Republicans are helping him to disseminate are losing.

The PRRI poll showed Hillary with a nation-wide 13 point lead over Trumpanzee among registered voters. That's huge. Just 35% of registered voters say they will cast a ballot for Trumpy-the-Clown. The dozen most recent losers haven't done as badly as Trump is polling:

• Romney- 47.15%
• McCain- 45.6%
• Kerry- 48.26%
• Gore- 48.38%
• Dole- 40.72%
• Bush I- 37.45%
• Dukakis- 45.65%
• Mondale- 40.56%
• Jimmy Carter- 41.01%
• Jerry Ford- 48.01%
• McGovern- 37.52%
• Humphrey- 42.72%

Even Goldwater's drubbing in 1964 gave him 38.47% of the popular vote. You have to go all the way back to 1924, a three-way race between Calvin Coolidge (R), John Davis (D) and Robert LaFollette (Progressive) to find a major party candidate doing as badly as Trumpanzee.

Among independents, Clinton leads Trumpanzee by seven points (40-33%). She also leads him among Hispanic voters (67-18%), among black voters (85-4%) and among whites with college educations (51-33%). Trumpanzee leads among whites without college degrees (50-32%). Candidate preference also varies significantly by age, though notably, Clinton is leading Trump in every single age bracket. Six in ten (60%) young adult voters (age 18 to 29) prefer Clinton, compared to only one-quarter (25%) who support Trump. Senior voters (age 65 and older) are more divided, with 45% supporting Clinton and 38% supporting Trump.

But what makes the PRRI poll interesting and distinct from the other polling organization's work is the religion aspect.

Religious groups are divided by race and ethnicity, with white non-Hispanic Protestants leaning toward Donald Trump and all other religious groups leaning toward Hillary Clinton. A majority of white evangelical Protestant voters (62% Trump vs. 23% Clinton) and a plurality of white mainline Protestant voters (47% Trump vs. 37% Clinton) support Trump over Clinton.

Catholic voters are divided along racial and ethnic lines. White Catholic voters are closely divided but lean toward Clinton (44% Clinton vs. 41% Trump), while non-white Catholic voters overwhelmingly support Clinton over Trump (76% vs. 13%, respectively).

Majorities of every other major religious group support Clinton over Trump: religiously unaffiliated voters (55% vs. 24%, respectively) and black Protestant voters (89% vs. 2%, respectively).

This morning the NY Times published a page headlined At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won’t Vote for Donald Trump. Here’s When They Reached Their Breaking Point. The give Club for Growth the credit for being the first GOP operation to break with Trump, announcing an ad campaign to discredit him on September 15, 2015, 3 months after he and the mail-order bribe came down the escalator in Trumpanzee Tower to call Mexican immigrants rapists and two months after he made the gratuitous crack about McCain not being a war hero. But it was Reid Ribble (R-WI) who was the first GOP elected official to say he wouldn't vote for Señor Trumpanzee if he won the nomination. He had already announced his intention of retiring from Congress but on December 11, 2015 Ribble broke with Trump. The following day the former Governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, did the same, comparing Trump to Hitler.

Florida Congressman Carlos Curbelo became the first member of Congress not retiring to say he wouldn't vote for Trumpanzee (Feb. 23, 2016) and 5 days later Ben Sasse (R-NE) became,e the first senator to do the same. Curbelo is in a 90%+ Hispanic district in Miami and will probably lose his seat in November and Sasse isn't up for reelection this cycle.

March 1 of this year saw retiring Virginia Congressman Scott Rigell just say no and the next day the current governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, did the same, as did former Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)-- and over 100 Republican national security experts. Next day: Mitt Romney and Norm Coleman (who was in my class at James Madison High School before he became the mayor of St. Paul and a then a Minnesota senator). One week later, March 9, Richard Hanna (R-NY) weighed in and became the first Republican member of Congress to say that he'd not only not vote for Señor Trumpanzee, but that he'd vote for Hillary. By the end of March, the second sitting Republican governor, Larry Hogan of Maryland, announced he wouldn't vote for Trump.

April was quiet and the May 6 came announcements from current congressmembers Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Robert Dold (R-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)... as well as from Jeb Bush. In June Señor Trumpanzee made his insane statement about Judge Curiel and the floodgates started to open. Two days later Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) called Trumpanzee un-American and Connecticut ex-congressman Chris Shays endorsed Hillary Clinton. June saw more Republicans endorsing Hillary, including former Montana Governor Marc Racicot and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson-- as well as several high level Bush cabinet members.

By August Republican congressmen who are not retiring and not in electoral trouble started giving Trumpanzee the thumbs down. Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) led the way. And August has seen a steady drip stream of Republicans saying they won't vote for him-- from Susan Collins (R-ME), William Howard Taft IV and more and more former congressmen and senators (Connie Morella of Maryland, David Durenberger of Minnesota, Tom Campbell of California and Tom Coleman of Missouri).

Capitol Hill insiders are whispering that "most" Republican senators are going to actually vote for Hillary but just won't say so publicly. One super-high ranking House staffer told me that by November I'd be able to write a short post about which Republican congressman are actively backing Trump. "The only one who gave him any money," he told me, not knowing that DWT broke this news last week, "is Lamar Smith and he could be in trouble with his voters back in Bexar County."

Trumpist jokester Rudy Giuliani was on Fox News this morning explaining, among other things, Obama's border policies that Señor Trumpanzee is trying to expropriate as his own  (and how, as mayor, he saved more black lives than Beyoncé or any of her dancers at the VMAs last night):