I admittedly stick mostly to big news pubs and whatever filters its way to Hubski. That said, I'm sort of in awe about the narrative around the Trump-Haley cage fight that's going on in the primaries. (Full disclosure, today is Michigan's primary, and I voted for Haley, though I'll vote for Sleepy Joe this fall.) The media narrative continues to be some version of "Look how bad Trump is trouncing her...20 pt loss...what the hell is she still doing in the race?" Whereas my reading of the data are more akin to "holy shit this incumbent is losing 40% of the vote." 40%!. That's a really big number that can't at all be totally explained by people like me (more or less reliable democratic voters) switching sides to vote for her. In my opinion, Trump is operating from a position of extreme weakness, and if it were any other incumbent not garnering 40% of votes, they would have thrown in the towel long ago.

I'm not saying he doesn't have a chance to win in the fall. I made that prognostication back in 2016 to my own dismay. But his chances are slimmer than they were then. He's this unpopular and hasn't had to face a barrage of political advertisements that repeat over and over footage of him saying "fight like hell for your country" superimposed on the Pelosi desk shitters, and "I'll tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want" superimposed on imaged of bombed schools in Ukraine. The ads write themselves at this point, and if there's one thing I'm sure of, Trump will continue to shoot himself in the foot at every opportunity.