Hot Air/Survey Monkey for the GOP primary has Trump continuing in first place at 23.77% nearly three times the support of second place Ben Carson (which mirrors recent polls) and more than the second/third/fourth place-getters (Carson/Bush/Rubio) COMBINED! Because of the unusually large number of "don't knows" (30.34%) the :"Block votes are consequently lower Trump Block 39% aprox Establishment block 26% about the same as the Gravis poll below. I personally think this poll is rubbish (but confirms trends) because of the Scott Walker 0.94% result but will await further polls to see the accuracy -or not.
I ran a blog post "The many memes Of The Pundits About Trump" which noted the seemingly endless attempts to write him off by the main stream media. These commenced with "He won't run" to "He will never show his income" to the latest "Trump is a racist endorsed by the Klan (such is the pundits desperation).
I've stopped at the 31st iteration as, frankly, the smell of desperation coming from the pundits is revolting.
One theme which has been running through the supposed higher echelons of the media where the psephologist geniuses lairs are is "Trump may be in the lead (although it "has peaked" they advise wrongly over and over again) but when the field gets down to a few Trump will lose the primary battles"
The "thinking" seems to run that Trump will peak at about 25% maximum and the remaining one or two Establishments candidates will pick up the votes of the Establishment candidates who dropped out and easily defeat him. Harry Enten at fivethirtyeight is a classic case:
"Even a candidate who did a little better than that, retaining 25 or 30 percent of the vote, would soon be bypassed as the rest of the field consolidated down to one or two other establishment-backed alternatives."
And Henry Olsen at 'National Review' is typically sneering as well as finding the "ceiling" problem for Trump
"he is very likely to find his upside limited as other candidates start to drop out, assuming that he is in for the duration."
These are just two of many. The main reason for such dismissal appears to be "Trump's lack of appeal across broad groups"which is contradicted by the polling analysis by Phillip Bump at 'The Washington Post'
"worth pointing out that the lead Trump enjoys is fairly even across all groups."
The pundits can't seem to keep their memes straight as reality is finally dawning on some that the "consolidation" argument is absolutely blown out of the water . This can be determined by examining the two latest polls from Reuters/Ipsos and Gravis. The pundits don't deliberately keep these facts hidden but do so out of prejudicial blindness in many cases.
If what the pundits call the "insurgent vote" and I call the 'Trump Block" is added up in the Reuters poll it comes out as Trump/Huckabee/Carson/Cruz/Perry/Jindal/Santorum at 57.3% The rest, the "Establishment block" is at 30% with Paul at 3.9%
The same blocks for Gravis come out at 55.2% and 31.2 with Paul at 1.5%
UPDATE;NEW QUINNIPIAC POLL
This released 08/25 confirms the Trump uptrend, he has risen 8 points from 20% to 28 in a month since their last poll in July. with his overall lead lead jumping from 7 points to 13.2. The "Trump Block support is 52%, the third poll in a row to have them over 50% and the "Establishment Block is 34%
Paul still mired at 2%
These polls show how silly Clive Crook at Bloomberg is with his "Trump is dominating the polls because the field is so huge" Trump at 40% has more support than the next five candidates combined!
The numbers are striking in their similarity and must give a solid indication of voting reality at this point in time. What is abundantly clear is that if the "insurgent group" winnowed down to just Trump he would be miles ahead of the "Establishment Block's" eventual leader. The two polls averaged have Trump at 35% alone. It is unimaginable that Cruz and Santorum & Jindal and most of Carson's support would go to e.g. Bush, and in that case Trump would be in the strongest position in the various state primaries.
The further analysis by Reuters destroys whatever shreds of credibility the pundits "winnowing" theory has.
In a match-up between Trump/Bush/Carson, Trump has 35% Bush 29% Carson 26% which is exactly what the block analysis would envision. If Carson dropped out, then clearly Trump would at that point run away with the election.
If Carson stayed in and no candidate had enough delegates going into the convention it would be clear that a Trump/Carson ticket would likely be in the offing and would present a formidable team going into the election.
