Quite a few Donald Trump fans are convinced that their man would beat Hillary Clinton resoundingly in a general election, carrying a slew of blue states where Republicans aren’t generally competitive in general elections.

Wayne Allyn Root’s assessment is typical. “New York is only the start,” he wrote. Trump can win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio, too, Root contends, because there are lots of middle- and working-class voters there who relish Trump’s honesty and politically incorrect style.

If that was true, you would think polls would show that Trump is running better than, or at least on par with, an average Republican in these states. They don’t.

In New York, the most recent Siena poll has Clinton beating Trump, 57 percent to 34 percent. This is not a reflection of phenomenal popularity on her part; the survey finds 48 percent of registered voters in the Empire State feel favorable to her, and the same percentage feels unfavorable. But, the protestations of Root and other boosters aside, voters in Trump’s home state like him even less than Clinton; only 29 percent have a favorable view of him, compared with 59 percent who see him unfavorably. And what limited support Trump does get in New York doesn’t come from blue-collar voters, either: He does best among those who make more than $100,000 per year, and a full 64 percent of voters in that group still have an unfavorable opinion of him.

The outlook is equally grim across the river in New Jersey, where Trump’s Atlantic City casinos once made him a key employer. Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind survey, conducted last week, shows Clinton leading Trump 52 percent to 36 percent among registered voters in the Garden State. When asked to offer one word that describes Trump, New Jerseyans most commonly answered “arrogant,” “idiot,” “good,” “bad,” “obnoxious,” and “ass.”

In Michigan, the latest Marist poll has Clinton ahead of Trump, 52 percent to 36 percent. The exit poll from that state’s GOP primary found that 48 percent of its participants would be “dissatisfied” if Trump won the nomination, and 50 percent did not think Trump was “honest and trustworthy.” Trump is at least within single digits of Clinton in the two biggest Rust-Belt states. The Republican firm Harper Polling finds Clinton ahead of Trump, 45 percent to 40 percent, in Pennsylvania, while in Ohio, PPP has Clinton ahead by the same margin and CNN has her ahead 50 percent to 43 percent.

Trump loves to cite his poll numbers during the debates, but he never mentions the fact that Clinton has beaten him in 24 of the last 28 head-to-head national polls. And his numbers in those polls have worsened over time. In the December ABC News/Washington Post poll, Clinton led Trump 50 percent to 44 percent; she now leads him 50 percent to 41 percent in the same poll. In January, Trump trailed her in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll 51 percent to 41 percent; in that poll’s latest edition, last week, she led him 51 percent to 38 percent. In December, CNN showed Clinton ahead 49 percent to 47 percent; their late February poll showed her ahead 52 percent to 44 percent.

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Source: Jim Geraghty, www.nationalreview.com