Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… The leaked DNC opposition research book on Donald Trump included media clips about how reporters covering his campaign believe the real estate mogul gained weight during his 2016 run. The revelation could have been devastating if Trump was trying out for varsity cheer in a cliquey high school instead of running for president.
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‘16 from 30,000: A series of polls out within the last 24 hours show plenty of rough news for Donald Trump. A Bloomberg Politics poll released yesterday shows him down 12 points to Hillary Clinton; another Washington Post/ABC poll shows Trump’s negative rating is now up to 70 percent; and a Wisconsin poll shows Clinton up by nine points among likely voters in the state.. Here’s another data point that ought to be very worrying to Republicans: Democrats are more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans are. In fact, as our colleague Benjy Sarlin flagged, 43 percent of Clinton’s backers in the Bloomberg poll said they are “very enthusiastic” about their nominee, compared to 33 percent of Trump backers who say the same. It’s a similar story in Wisconsin, where the share of Republicans who say they are certain they’ll vote in November is *down* since March, while it’s up with Democrats. Pundits will sound like broken records until Election Day saying that elections are “about addition, not subtraction” when it comes to courting voters, but Trump faces a real problem when even the voters who may otherwise want to check the box for a Republican president simply aren’t excited enough to go to the polls themselves, let alone pound the pavement for him.
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
- Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted that in the future, people will acknowledge "Trump was right" to propose a ban on Muslim immigrants, NBC News’ Alex Jaffe reports.
- Trump and the NRA will meet to discuss to discuss proposals aimed at preventing those on the “no fly” federal terrorist watch list from buying guns, NBC’s Halimah Abdullah reports.
- NBC News’ Leigh Ann Caldwell reports on how the NRA influence extends beyond just political contributions.
- Hillary Clinton said none of Trump’s proposals would have saved a life in Orlando.
- Here’s why the DNC won’t call Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee, NBC News’ Alex Seitz-Wald reports.
- Mark Murray argues that Bernie Sanders biggest mistake was not declaring victory after he had already won.
- NBC's ad-tracking sources at SMG Delta tell us that the Clinton campaign is booking airtime in seven battleground states - Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia.
- And from First Read: Donald Trump is a man on an island, and he’s sinking.
FOR THE RECORD…
"We have to have Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself. I’ll do very well.”
-- Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta on Wednesday.
TOMORROW’S SKED
Donald Trump holds a rally at 8:00 p.m.
