Donald Trump has crushed polls throughout the Republican primary, but as his attention begins to shift to the general election and his coming battle against Hillary Clinton, huge problems are already emerging.
Trump had little trouble dispatching his Republican opponents, tapping into voters’ frustration with the establishment that helped him knock off party favorites Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. Though it appeared that Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were prepared to take Trump to a contested Republican National Convention and possibly steal away the nomination from him, both ended up dropping out this week after Trump’s resounding victory in Indiana.
For the past few weeks, Trump has been gradually turning his focus to Hillary Clinton with a series of attacks, but he may have a lot of ground to make up. A new poll from Landmark/RosettaStone, via WSB-TV , found that Trump is in a statistical tie with Clinton in Georgia, a state that is normally a Republican stronghold.
The Republican Party is unraveling over Donald Trump’s takeover https://t.co/cokCiaT2va pic.twitter.com/zO7s3SCr2l
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 7, 2016
The poll, conducted on May 5, found that Trump had the support of 42 percent of voters while Clinton had 41 percent, with close to one-quarter of voters still undecided.
Hillary Clinton has performed very well with African-American voters during the Democratic primary, and could use that advantage to put Donald Trump on the defensive throughout the south. Georgia was one of her best states, defeating Bernie Sanders with 70 percent of the vote.
This week’s poll found that Clinton does well across demographics in Georgia, winning independents and women.
“I think Hillary Clinton has a chance to win Georgia if she is willing to invest here and put people in the state,” Democratic strategist Billy Linville said.
Donald Trump doesn’t think the Republican Party “has to be unified.” https://t.co/37ct82Dcyz https://t.co/smPOT3niH1
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Trump’s difficulties with some important demographics may open up other unexpected battlegrounds for the presumptive Republican nominee. Polls have shown that Donald Trump has huge unfavorable numbers among women, with a March poll from Reuters /Ipsos showing that half of U.S. women have a “very unfavorable” view of Trump and that close to 70 percent of women overall view him unfavorably.
“If the presidential election were tomorrow, women would be a big problem for Trump,” Republican strategist David Carney said at the time, via Reuters . “But he has time to fix it.”
Trump has been accused of misogyny throughout his campaign, including his criticism of Fox News host Megyn Kelly in which he said she had “blood coming out of her wherever” after she asked him a tough question at a debate.
Trump’s problems are just as deep with Latino voters, with close to 80 percent having an unfavorable view of Trump in polls during the Republican primary. That has others worried, including Arizona Senator John McCain who said at a closed-door fundraiser that Trump’s unpopularity could put his own seat at risk.
“If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being the Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life,” McCain said, according to a recording of the event obtained by Politico . “If you listen or watch Hispanic media in the state and in the country, you will see that it is all anti-Trump. The Hispanic community is roused and angry in a way that I’ve never seen in 30 years.”
Georgia and Arizona have been safely Republican states for several election cycles, but if they are at risk in 2016 it could mean huge trouble not only for Donald Trump, but for other congressional Republicans hoping to keep their seats. And there could be even more battlefronts opening up — a previous poll from Utah showed that Donald Trump would be in trouble of losing to Hillary Clinton in November.
[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]