When it comes to Donald Trump, the mainstream media has had a habit of being repeatedly wrong in its forecasts. Most recently, in the aftermath of Trump's effective victory in the GOP primaries, the conventional wisdom was that the real estate billionaire would "never" be able to catch up to Hillary's support at the national level. This too now appears to have been a mistake.
According to the latest just released Reuters/Ipsos poll, Donald Trump's support has surged and he is now running about even with Democrat Hillary Clinton among likely U.S. voters, in what Reuters describes as "a dramatic turnaround since he became the Republican party's presumptive presidential nominee."
As shown in the Reuters chart above, in the most recent survey, 41 percent of likely voters supported Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and 40 percent backed Trump, with 19 percent not decided on either yet, according to the online poll of 1,289 people conducted from Friday to Tuesday. The poll had a credibility interval of about 3 percentage points suggesting that it is possible that Trump may have even overtaken Hillary nationally.
What makes the reversal particularly notable is that as recently as last week, Clinton led Trump by around 13 points in the poll.
One possible explanation for Trump's surge is the elimination of his two key competitors. The results reflect a big increase in support for Trump since he knocked out U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich last week to become the last Republican in the White House race.
Another possible reason is that as noted earlier, nearly half of Bernie supporters are willing to cast their vote for Trump compared to half that for Hillary, in what is shaping up as a presidential election in which it is not so important that one's liked candidate wins as much as one's disliked candidate does not win.
The results signal that contrary to pervasive media reports, a close fight is shaping up between the two White House rivals as Americans. But more importantly, it assures even more hours of entertainment as the "debates" between Hillary and Trump will surely break all political TV and media records, even as the US economy continues to disintegrate before our eyes.