Has Trump Lost the Election?

Looking at the 2016 election, much of what I have written about is coming to pass. For many voters including myself; both candidates are seriously flawed candidates and also possibly lacking any fortitude or character to be President. The other aspect is that both candidates are the two weakest candidates ever to be nominated and they are the only candidate the other could possibly beat.

And this election will come down to two major points when it comes to determining the winner. The first being events beyond the control of candidates; including another terrorist attack on American soil. One more Orlando can tip the election in a decisive fashion. The second event is a series of mistakes by one candidate that proves too much to overcome. The latter is what is sinking Trump’s campaign now and unless a major event happens could ensure his defeat.

Let’s begin with Trump's mistakes which so far are coming in waves. After the GOP convention, Trump had momentum despite the tumultuous nature including Cruz's non-endorsement and a 75 minute Trump acceptance speech that featured Trump essentially yelling in the microphone.

The Democratic convention started in a similar tumultuous fashion but by day three, Obama's speech in favor of his former Secretary of State put the convention back on track and not even Hillary's shrill presentation of a well-crafted speech could derail it. Then the Trump mistakes came in bunches that allowed the Clinton’s bump to coalesce.

Trump’s attack on a Muslim war hero parents simply reinforced in many voter minds including Republicans the ugly nature of Trump, who seems never to allow any slight go unanswered. Regardless of what one thought of what the Khan said at the convention or their past history, attacking a grieving mother was stupid and even some on his own side stated the obvious, Trump was wrong. Sarah Palin own son-in-law tweeted that for Trump to be credible as commander-in-chief, he had to apologize. The worst aspect is that Trump and his surrogates allowed this issue to go on for days while Hillary got away with lies and worse. On a day that Hillary outright lied to Chris Wallace on his Sunday show, we were still talking about Trump.

Trump also reinforced his perceive ignorance on foreign policy when he talked about Russian involvement in the Ukraine, seeminglly unaware in his comments that Putin was already in the Crimea. Add his refusal to originally endorse Kelly Ayotte, John McCain and Paul Ryan simply reinforced the division of the GOP. Trump is having trouble uniting the GOP and this is one major reason that he is behind while Hillary smoothly united her Party.

The good news for Trump is that he can still recover since the margin is single digit and more importantly with two independent candidates in Gary Johnson and Jill Stein combined may offer a bigger threat to Hillary Clinton. Most polls that include both candidates often show that Clinton recent margin are smaller than when they measure a two candidate race. (Ignore any polls that are two candidates since they don’t accurately measure the race since this is now a four candidate’s race. The two candidate poll are only useful for measuring which candidate is the least likable. Also, any poll that emphasize Registered voters is less likely to accurate as opposed to polls that emphasize likely voters and Trump does better with polls containing likely voters.)

Trump is not losing because of the Never Trump movement but because of his inability to unite Party but his recent endorsement of Ryan, McCain and Ayotte showed that maybe Trump is learning that he can’t win alone and his previous non-endorsement along with his attack of the Khan’s family gave enough Republican office holders the excuse to walk away from their candidate. Trump can still win but as I mentioned before, his margin for error is less but he has one thing going for him: Hillary Clinton is his opponent.