Monday, July 18, 2016

First Read: Trump Speaks to a Jittery Nation (And a Jittery GOP)

First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
 
Trump speaks to a jittery nation and a jittery party

CLEVELAND -- Donald Trump has two goals over the next four days at his convention here: to address (and satisfy) a jittery nation and jittery party. Indeed, today's theme -- "Make America Safe Again" -- plays right into yesterday's tragic violence in Baton Rouge, LA. As for the jittery party, when you talk to GOP operatives who are gathered here, few truly expect to win in November. So Trump has opportunities to calm the nerves of both a rattled public and a rattled Republican Party. Does he seize them?
 
A divided (and unpopular) GOP comes to Cleveland

As Republicans begin the first day of their convention here, we can safely say that the state of their party is, well, not so strong. In the new NBC/WSJ poll, which finds Hillary Clinton holding on to her five-point lead over Donald Trump, only 38% of Republican voters say they are satisfied with Trump as their nominee, versus 54% of Democrats who say they are satisfied with Clinton. What's more, a combined 85% of all voters - including 78% of Republicans - say the GOP is not that unified or only somewhat unified. That's compared with 48% of all voters (and 40% of Democrats) who say that about the Democratic Party. And overall, the Republican Party has a fav/unfav rating of 27%/51% (-24) in the poll, compared with the Democrats' 39%/41% score (-2). So while you could look at our poll and fairly conclude that both Trump (-33) and Clinton (-22) are unpopular in our NBC/WSJ poll, there really is no comparing the state of the GOP heading into their convention and the Democrats going into theirs. 

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