Elizabeth Warren by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

The political sphere has spent the last four days arguing about whether Donald Trump is a racist simply because he criticized Baltimore and Elijah Cummings. As per the normal rules, a Republican is never allowed to bring up the squalor within a Democrat member’s district and the President obviously isn’t much for the rules of politics.

If you only pay attention to the mainstream media, you’d think Trump was on the edge of total defeat, a mere shell of himself wilting under the barrage of Washington Post editorials saying the same thing over and over. Even on the right, we’ve gotten the usual suspects in the smart set assuring us that Trump’s highlighting of Baltimore was political mistake.

A new poll is pushing back on that conventional wisdom though. Emerson polled a series of head to head matchups. Unlike many other polls going right now, this one is done with registered voters (which will later be supplanted by likely voters) instead of just the general adult population.

NATIONAL POLL:

General Election Head to Heads:

Trump 49 | Biden 51
Trump 49 | Sanders 51
Trump 50 | Warren 50
Trump 52 | Harris 48
Trump 52 | Buttigieg 48https://t.co/g1TTaBYk92 pic.twitter.com/OVXty8HN8c

— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) July 30, 2019

The results against Biden and Sanders actually track with what we’ve seen for a while, although the Biden margin is much lower than other polls. Biden, because of his credibly (deserved or not) with mid-west Democrats, has always represented the largest threat to the President’s reelection. As for Sanders, for whatever reason, he appeals to working class voters who otherwise would vote for Trump. If you’ll recall in 2016, Trump pulled about 10% of Sanders voters on election night.

What’s most interesting about this poll is that Trump is tied or beating Warren and Harris. That does buck the conventional wisdom we constantly hear in the press. Harris is described as ascendant, even though there’s little evidence of that. Warren is constantly described as smart and ambitious, with a “plan” for everything.

Yet, the public aren’t necessarily buying it.

This can be explained mostly by their combination of radical policy positions coupled with just being plain unlikable. Warren is easily the shrillest person in the Democratic field. Listening to her screech through policy is like nails on a chalkboard. Harris doesn’t suffer from this and has a much better delivery, yet she’s constantly stumbling and flip-flopping. It makes her seem inauthentic and too much like a calculating political.

I’ve said for a while that either Harris or Warren would be the best matchup for Trump if we are picking from the top tier. There are actually some people in the lower tiers that I believe would fair far better in a general election.

A few last comments about this poll. Notice the numbers breakdown to an even 100%. That’s because they didn’t include the useless “undecided” option that other polls use. The truth is, no one is truly undecided right now. That’s not say some small subset couldn’t be swayed, but we learn much more when people are forced to make a decision.

Another thing to note is that this poll took place after Trump’s Baltimore comments. They seemed to have had no effect on his support. That should be a lesson to those who are positive their view of traditional politics is correct. If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that thinking only inside the box is a sure way to end up with egg on your face again.

If you take anything from this poll though, it should be this. The mainstream media simply don’t impact things nearly as much as they’d like you to believe they do. Most of the country are tuning them out. They do not have the ability to take down Donald Trump no matter how much they scream and yell. Remember that the next time they start another outrage cycle.

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