On Saturday, The Nation writer John Nichols told MSNBC that President Donald Trump's new internal polls showing him losing key states are "devastating" — and show why his path to re-election may be slipping out of his grasp.
"I would just emphasize these polls are more than a wake-up call. They're pretty devastating numbers," said Nichols. "We can get excited about a close race in Texas or even some good numbers out of Florida. But remember that for Donald Trump, the key is the Great Lakes states."
"What these internal polls tell us parallels what we're seeing from publicly done polling in those regions," said Nichols. "Two things very significant. Number one, there is an energized Democratic base, more energized, it appears, than 2016. And additionally one subset of this that's a really big deal, major issue for Trump, and that is that in the rural areas where Democrats severely underperformed in 2016, it's what we are seeing in the public polls and I suspect top line numbers from what we're seeing in other places suggest we're seeing rural areas begin to tick back up for Democrats going to that 40 percent number."
"If Democrats get to that number in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, perhaps even Iowa, go higher there, Donald Trump is defeated for re-election," said Nichols. "So this is big deal stuff."
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