DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Donald J. Trump has been waiting for months for a poll in which he cracks 50 percent of the vote against Hillary Clinton in any of his top battleground states: Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio or Pennsylvania.
“It’ll happen after the conventions,” he said in a July 6 interview. “Believe me.”
But in the last two weeks, instead of attracting a surge of new admirers, Mr. Trump has been hemorrhaging support among loyal Republicans, anti-establishment independents, Clinton-loathing Democrats and others, according to polls and 30 interviews with a cross-section of voters. His dispute with the Muslim parents of the Army captain who was killed in action in Iraq, and his suggestion that “Second Amendment people” could somehow stop Mrs. Clinton, have intensified doubts about Mr. Trump even among Americans who were initially attracted to his frank and freewheeling style.
Several Republican voters said they grow leery every time Mr. Trump speaks these days, for fear he will embarrass them, and feel increasingly repelled just when they hoped he might adjust his message to try to draw more people in.
Donald Trump’s Missteps Risk Putting a Ceiling Over His Support in Swing States - The New York Times
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