Right now that's being balanced out by whites and men who are backing Mr Trump in large numbers. "It's not a situation where we have any evidence in prior elections for how this will play out," he added. Depending on your point of view, it’s either a surprisingly bleak comparison or a favorable precedent, since Mr. Trump has since made gains in the polls. Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 For the first time in this long election campaign, Republican Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Two weeks ago you told me that it would take a miracle for Donald Trump to win the presidency, and now I’m seeing all these polls that show Trump either tied with or beating Hillary Clinton. "If one party has their nominee wrapped up before the other, we usually see a bump for the nominee who's the presumptive nominee," says Patrick Murray, founding director of the Monmouth Polling Institute. On the Democratic side, since the race is ongoing, with more primaries remaining, you have a lot of Democrats who support Bernie Sanders and are not yet willing to put their backing behind Clinton. The most recent wave of national surveys shows Mrs. Clinton winning just 55 to 72 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters. A couple of weeks ago, Senator Lindsey Graham said he “cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump.” Now he’s urging conservative donors to get behind him. Mr. Trump, despite his gains, now finds himself at around 42 or 43 percent in national polls. The demographics are split 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hillary Clinton has a decided advantage among women and minorities 
 
 Minorities and women are overwhelming supporting Mrs Clinton. And today's polls right now might be a lot farther from Election Day outcomes than those in coming months. John McCain and Mitt Romney erased Barack Obama’s leads in 2008 and 2012 after they secured their party’s nomination; Mr. Obama reclaimed a clear lead in 2008 after he clinched the Democratic nomination. because Republicans have come around to Trump, while Clinton is still dealing with a divided party.” For example, according to the recent New York Times poll, which has Clinton up 6 points over Trump, 28 percent of Sanders voters say they won’t back her in November. But this is not 1988, and Clinton and Trump are no Dukakis, for one glaring reason: Everyone knows who Clinton and Trump are. Right now the safest bet is to trust the fundamentals: Virtually all recent surveys show there are more Democrats than Republicans in the 2016 electorate; the incumbent party’s president has a high approval rating; the Republican candidate is an incoherent, transparently misogynistic pathological liar who has irrevocably alienated critical swaths of the electorate — and many of his own party’s top donors and intellectuals. There is an emotional fight on the Democratic side right now, with Sanders supporters pitted against Clinton's. He would need to win 68 percent of pledged delegates (that is, 68 percent of the vote in the remaining states) at this point in order to win the nomination. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday, 97 percent of Americans had an opinion on Clinton or Trump — that is, they were able to say they saw them favorably or unfavorably. In May 2012, 14 percent of the country had no opinion on Mitt Romney; in 1988, a quarter of America had nothing to say about Dukakis. And because people already know what they think of Trump and Clinton, it could be tougher to change those opinions.
– Not too long ago, Hillary Clinton held double-digit leads over Donald Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. Trump, however, has now actually edged ahead of her in an average of national polls compiled at RealClearPolitics. The development has prompted all kinds of analysis. Some highlights: "Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party's base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the same with hers," writes Nate Cohn at the New York Times. "If anything, her problem with Bernie Sanders' voters has gotten a bit worse." But presidential polls in late May have "historically bad" track records, notes NPR. Let's see what happens after she picks up the nomination. Those who fear a Trump presidency shouldn't panic, writes Michael Cohen at the Boston Globe. "Unless Bernie Sanders refuses to endorse Clinton—and I can't imagine he would do that—the vast majority of Sanders backers will vote for the party nominee." On the other hand, "Sanders supporters hate the Democratic Party, and Trump is a unique political talent." This at the Daily Intelligencer, whose overview offers arguments for both Clinton and Trump supporters. Plus, "after six years of political gridlock, many voters are yearning for change in Washington, and that should help Trump," writes Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times. "The only thing we know right now is that, at this moment, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are essentially in a dead heat," writes Anthony Zurcher at the BBC. "And Mr. Trump has made a lot of pundits and prognosticators look foolish over the past year."