The Future President, Donald Trump

The influences were many.

Yes, but what do you do when the subject is forced upon you?

who have no other qualifications.

Donald Trump loves to brag that he's ahead of Hillary Clinton in the polls. "I beat Hillary Clinton in many polls," he repeatedly insisted at a debate earlier this month.

Here on planet Earth, that isn't true or even close to true. In 33 general election polls tracked by HuffPost Pollster over the past two months, Trump has led Clinton in just one.

Trump now trails Clinton by 9 points in the HuffPost Pollster polling average and by 11.2 points in RealClearPolitics' average — and he's behind Bernie Sanders by even more in both. Any of these showings from Trump would be the weakest performance from a major party nominee in the past 20 years.

The trendlines for the billionaire are terrible too. Back during the waning months of 2015, he regularly came within a few points of both Clinton and Sanders. But historically, polls conducted so far in advance have been essentially meaningless.

Crucially, Trump's decline has happened just when these polls actually start to mean something. In newer polls, Trump almost never comes close to either Clinton or Sanders anymore. And in past races, changes in general election polling that have occurred during this period of the campaign have often ended up sticking.

"Were this a few months ago, I'd say, 'What's the big deal?'" says Christopher Wlezien, a political science professor at the University of Texas. "But polls today are much more meaningful than they were 90 days ago. And the polls today are much less favorable for Trump."

Trump’s unreserved defense this week of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, after he was charged with battery against a female reporter, continues this pattern. Both in the CNN town hall Tuesday, and a Today show appearance Wednesday, Trump praised Lewandowski, belittled the reporter, and even suggested he might pursue legal action against her. Amid that torrent of words, the one thing Trump did not say in either interview was that he believed it was categorically wrong for a man to use physical force against a woman. Such an omission may help explain why Trump’s unfavorable rating among all women registered voters reached a stratospheric 73 percent in the latest CNN/ORC national poll.

That he believed it was categorically wrong for a man to use physical force against a woman.

Trump doing a surprise meeting with Reince Preibus RNC Chair. First thought I had was maybe he's going to drop out.

but I'm sort of at a loss as to why the republicans and especially those most anti-abortion are getting so pissed.

Okay, so - the right wing Republican "pro-lifers" are for repealing Roe V. Wade.

, the broader liberal shift in Americans' ideology of late could mean the recent pro-choice expansion has some staying power.

The trends by age and party ID show a similar pattern, with support for the pro-choice label dipping among all age and party groups in 2012, but subsequently returning to 2008 levels or higher.

The biggest change by age since 2001 is that middle-aged and older Americans are more likely to be pro-choice today,

Thirty-one percent of Americans describe their views on social issues as generally liberal, matching the percentage who identify as social conservatives for the first time in Gallup records dating back to 1999.

snood wrote:

Okay, so - the right wing Republican "pro-lifers" are for repealing Roe V. Wade.

I'll have to look it up but I think I just heard something about how small that group is . It's like gay marriage - no one's talking about it anymore.