Immediately after the GOP convention, Donald Trump surged in the polls to a 6-point lead over Hillary Clinton. That bump quickly evaporated, and since then Clinton has stayed well ahead.
The Trump campaign insists that's totally fine. In fact, campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Thursday, this "drop in poll numbers" was "expected." Be chill, guys.
But Trump himself did not get that memo. Speaking at a rally in Florida on Wednesday night, he mused on the contrast between the size of his event crowds on the one hand — "We go to Oklahoma, we had 25,000 people. We had 21,000 people in Dallas. We had 35,000 people in Mobile, Alabama" — and the weakness of his poll numbers on the other.
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"I don't know why we're not leading by a lot," Trump plaintively concluded. "Maybe crowds don't make the difference." Maybe, indeed.
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