These Latest Trump Polls Are Bad In So Many Ways

The first week of August could also be called Donald Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. I'm not going to say it's been the worst or that we've hit the bottom. With both parties contributing a combination slightly-veiled penis-boasting and a near-indictment over emails, this whole election could be called a race to the bottom. But if not the absolute worst so far (or yet to come) for the Republican nominee, this week was a pretty negative one for Trump, and there are numbers to prove it. In fact, the latest Trump polls make defeating Hillary Clinton seem all but impossible.

There are multiple layers of troubling news in the polls out this week. For one, there's the fact that Trump is losing nationally to Clinton by decently large margins, according to a number of them. An NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll out Thursday showed Clinton with a nine-point lead over Trump, and that was one of the tighter outcomes. The McClatchy-Marist poll this week found the former secretary of state running a way with a gargantuan 15-point lead over the reality TV business mogul. With that kind of deficit, perhaps Clinton could've been indicted for her email practices and still made it to the White House.

Joking aside, I am not exactly sure what Clinton would have to do to mess up this lead, especially with under 100 days to go until voters cast their ballots. (Then again, both parties have pulled up some epic campaign face-palm moments, so I wouldn't put it past her.)

The disturbing (for Trump and/or Republicans) message of these polls is reinforced by the numbers also out this week showing how badly Trump is performing in critical swing states. In Michigan, Clinton is beating Trump by nearly double digits. She's got a nine-point edge over the Donald, according to a poll conducted by the Detroit News and WDIV-TV. While she was beating Trump in Michigan in May, according to the poll, her lead has now more than doubled. In Pennsylvania, a poll conducted by Franklin and Marshall College found that Clinton had an 11-point lead, which widens to 13 points when Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are included.

In Florida, the latest poll from Suffolk University found Clinton beating Trump by six points, reduced to four if third-party candidates are included. While this is certainly a smaller lead, a Quinnipiac University poll had Trump beating Clinton in Florida (and Pennsylvania, for that matter) less than a month ago. Thus, it's not just that Clinton now appears to be handily beating Trump nationally, but roughly four weeks ago, she was trailing Trump in two critical states where she's now beating him.

Of course, numbers are just numbers until Americans actually vote on Nov. 8. But at this rate, Trump better hope Clinton starts insulting some babies or criticizing Gold Star families to level the presidential playing field.