Since I wrote the article below a new poll has come out in Nevada which reinforces, graphically that Trump is in the ascendancy. It further puts the lie to the "Trump is destroying the GOP's Hispanic vote potential."
Trump Leads Nevada Poll With Overwhelming Hispanic Support
Trump Has Commanding Overall Lead of 27.7% in Nevada Poll with 31.4% Support by Hispanics
Donald Trump entered the 'Real Clear Politics' "Poll of Polls" aggregate poll chart on June 17th. The aggregate polls are considered to be a realistic snapshot of where a particular candidate is at any given time because it averages out all the available polls.
This formula worked well for Nate Silver's "Fivethirtyeight.com" website across the last presidential elections when individual polls often got things wrong e.g. the "Romney in the lead" polls in 2012 which, as it so turned out, got the Republican camps spirits up only to be heartbroken at the real result.
Here is the RCP chart for June 17th 2015 (the thin gray vertical line indicates the date on the graph) which has Trump's first entry.
As can be seen this was exactly the moment when Jeb Bush began a sharp ascendancy, Rubio was in the midst of his major descent as were Walker and Cruz. Carson/Huckabee/Paul/Christie were at levels they have all declined, some sharply, from.
Here is the RCP aggregate poll one month later, and the results are striking.
Bush peaked at 17.8% on July 13 and has commenced a steep decline to 15.5% Trump has gone from a first entry at 3.6% to be effectively tied with Bush at 15.0%. The latest Fox poll has Trump at 18% to Bush , in third place, at 14%-if this trend continues Trump will shortly be in first place.
Where has this massive leap for Trump come from? Rubio down from 10% to 6% Carson from 9.4% to 5.8% Huckabee from 8.6% to 5.8% stand out. The total percentage for the, at the time, 9 main candidates excepting Trump but including Perry at 2% was 71.2 today it is 62.4. This will be even lower if, trend continuing, Bush continues to decline as sharply as he has lately in conjunction with Trump's rise.
The facts are that every single candidate from the date of Trump's entry has either declined sharply from peak (Bush), declined or stayed the same (Perry and Santorum at a minuscule 2%). New entries Graham, Kasich, Fiorina, Jindal, Pataki have made no impression or not appeared at all.
Those considered on the conservative right Cruz, Huckabee, Carson,Walker have lost a combined 10.3 points."Establishment" candidates Rubio and Christie have lost 5.8 points and, from peak, Bush has lost 2.3 points clearly a majority of these 18.4 point total losses have gone to Trump for him to go from 3.6% to 15% in just one month.
Interestingly the losses from the conservative and establishment groups are almost even which could show Trump is drawing support from across the board not just the "populist" base that the media has tried to show he only appeals to. That fact may be the most significant point from this analysis as it could well show Trump does have the broad base of support to not only win the nomination but the election.
Polls showing Trump far behind Hillary Clinton at this point are utterly meaningless as were the polls showing Reagan being clobbered by Carter and Bush Snr. being massively behind Dukakis. Once the nominations are secured the polls will draw closer as they almost always do.
At the moment Trump is not only clearly on the rise but is doing so at such a rate, and drawing support from all quarters he appears to have moved beyond the "flavor of the month" role that a number of previous high fliers had.
Whether this will be be sustained to such a point that Trump will be an unstoppable force is to be seen. the fact that Senator Cruz "I'm a big fan of Trump" requested a meeting with Trump and Dr. Carson indicated a willingness to "run with Trump" may be a strong indicator at which way the wind is blowing for the moment.
In the meantime though, that Trump has confounded the media and the naysayers is one highly positive aspect that all Republicans, even including the candidates in decline, can enjoy surely.
