The Doom Poll

Supporters of former President Donald Trump buy campaign souvenirs at the Turning Point Action USA conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 15, 2023. (Photo by Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images)

Do you guys ever think about dying?

As in Barbie, so too in life: Read through today’s New York Times survey of the Republican primary and you might find yourself suddenly thinking about dying.

Or feeling like you’re dying, even.

The pros will remind us that it’s just one poll but in this case the pollster enjoys an A+ rating from FiveThirtyEight. And the topline number happens to reflect the national polling average almost exactly. The Times has the race 54-17 for Trump over DeSantis; the RealClearPolitics average has it 54-18.3. The frontrunner has tripled the vote share of the only opponent who seemed to have a chance of defeating him. No candidate in the history of modern presidential polling has lost a lead of as much as 20 points at this stage of a campaign, let alone 37.

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