This past week, American Thinker partnered with Rasmussen polling to look at the battleground states, plus a few blue states in which there seems to be a softening toward Trump as Kamala’s campaign blunders along. What emerged from the ten states (AZ, GA, MI, MN, NC, NM, NV, PA, VA, and WI) was fascinating. In the swing states, Trump and Kamala are close, although Trump seems to be pulling ahead. In the blue states, Trump is closer than one would expect. Most amazingly, voters in all states, often by significant majorities, love Trump; they just don’t know it.

On the kitchen table, bread-and-butter, money-in-the-bank, our-children’s-future issues, people accept the Republican view that Democrats have done a terrible job and that Trump can do a better job. Democrats prevail only on “emotion” issues generated by media hatred and “vibes.” See here, here, here and here.

To win, Trump cannot suddenly retrain voters to like him. Instead, he must tell them, “I’m not going to be your best friend. But I’m going to be your best president. You know that things are deeply wrong in America, you know that I’ve correctly diagnosed what’s wrong, and you trust me to fix it. Vote for me to save yourselves.”

I’ve appended below a chart showing my analysis of the ten-state poll data. Here’s a link to a bigger version of the chart.

Most obviously, the chart is a sea of red. In a sane world, anchored to reality, the 2024 election should be a Trump blow-out.

The left column lists the pertinent questions that were asked of those polled (a mix of Democrats, Republicans, and Others, reflecting each states’ turnout in 2024).

Block one voters whether they’re voting for Kamala or Trump. Blue-colored answers show Kamala winning, red answers show Trump winning, and white answers show a tie.

Block two is the issues that matter most to voters. The number one issue is the economy, and the most common number two issue is the border. Abortion is the next most common issue. (There were other issues in the poll, but these were almost invariably the top three.)

The economy is a red issue because Kamala is the incumbent. If voters are concerned about the economy, it means that they think the current situation is lousy, favoring the opponent (Trump). The same rationale applies to the border. Abortion, of course, is a blue issue because it’s the only thing Kamala can campaign on.

Block three reflects people’s responses when asked what they want the new president to address first. People across all but the bluest of blue states are concerned about immigration and the economy—which means they want a change from the status quo. Kamala is the status quo, so this favors Trump.

Block four asks voters how favorably they view the candidates and which candidate they think has a better character. This is where nine years of hammering Trump as an awful person is balanced against two frantic months of selling Kamala’s joy.

These sales pitches have worked. Except for Arizona and Georgia, the media have convinced voters that Kamala is a better human being than Trump. Republicans lack time before November to convince voters that Kamala is not joyful and intelligent but is, instead, a dimwitted, hardcore communist.

Block five also reflects media-driven outcomes. It asks voters to say which candidate and party are more likely to be a threat to democracy and which party is more likely to govern tyrannically. Again, this is going to be hard to shift because these are emotional responses.

Block six asks people whether they’re better off now than they were four years ago, whether their children will be better off than they are, whether they feel safer now than four years ago (which encompasses both crime and threats to America as a whole), who is America’s biggest enemy (both foreign and domestic), and which candidate is best equipped to deal with China, Iran, and Russia.

Here’s where the chart goes red. In every state, voters agree by huge margins that they are not better off, that they feel hopeless about their children, and that the world is less safe than it was four years ago. This is as profound an indictment as you will ever see of the current administration.

People agreed that the biggest threats, both foreign and domestic are either China or the Democrat party. Most worry about the Republican party, too, although a bit less, so that’s a win.

The most interesting metric is that when it comes to threats from evil actors overseas, voters overwhelmingly feel that Trump is more capable of handling those potentially existential threats. Only in New Mexico are voters split on whether Trump or Kamala is the better candidate.

Block seven addresses immigration. In every state, voters hate the status quo. By huge margins, all states favor the candidate who wants to deport illegal aliens (Trump) versus the candidate who wants to grant them amnesty (Kamala). By the same margins, they think the Harris-Biden administration has done way too little to stop the flow of illegal aliens and, by that same margin, they think that Trump can fix the problem.

Block eight covers the economy. Except for Minnesota, where there’s a tie, voters overwhelmingly trust Trump more to resolve their economic woes. When they look back on the last 3.75 years, they’re less likely to vote for Kamala.

Block nine, which covers energy policy, is somewhat anomalous. Across the board, voters care more about energy prices than carbon emissions, so I colored it red, because emissions are a Democrat concern. However, even in a few swing states, voters split on whether Trump or Kamala would be better on energy policy.

Block ten—transgenderism—shows that voters across all ten states agreed by blow-out margins that there are only two sexes and that minors should be left alone. That’s a clear red win across the board.

Voters are hurting, and they know it. They also understand that Biden-Harris policies cause this pain.

Democrats are emotionally invested in hating Trump and loving abortion. Some may be swayed by reminding them repeatedly that abortion is a state’s rights issue, but they won’t get that. Moreover, Kamala has tried to address this reality by announcing her goal to end the filibuster. Voila! Abortion is now a federal election issue again. Few hardcore Democrats, unless they’re Jewish, are going to shift.

However, that red chart shows that Trump must make a play for moderate Democrats and Independents. Again, he will not convince them to vote for him, but he needs to remind them that (a) they’re suffering terribly from Harris-Biden policies and (b) that they know he can make their lives better. That’s a winning message that needs to be shouted from the treetops.