What hasn’t killed Donald Trump has only made him stronger.

Right off the bat, there was the shocking statement about the Mexican government sending over immigrant “rapists.” Then came the challenge to John McCain’s war hero status, a low blow from someone who avoided the draft. Next were the “bimbo” retweet attacks on Fox host Megyn Kelly (not to mention the reference to her “wherever”). His latest rants on “anchor babies” and nasty feuds with the media would have wounded any other mortal presidential candidate.


But Trump is more popular than ever.

A new poll released by Quinnipiac University on Thursday showed Trump’s lead growing, his favorability rating up and his unfavorability rating down.

Trump is rewriting the playbook in which politicians who offend respond by equivocating, clarifying or apologizing. Instead, he goes on offense and takes his message directly to the heart of his critics’ support. The polls and the ratings don’t lie: Voters and viewers love it.

“It’s an excellent strategy,” said prominent New Hampshire Republican strategist Dave Carney, former adviser to George H.W. Bush and Rick Perry, among others. “What’s not excellent is the morons with the 202 and the 212 intheir area code who think this stuff hurts him,” he said, referring to Washington, D.C., and Manhattan.

Trump’s support among Republicans and Republican leaners rose to 28 percent in the poll conducted Aug. 20-25 and released on Thursday, up eight points from the last Quinnipiac poll, conducted in late July, before the first debate and Trump’s attacks on Kelly. In the same period, the percentage of American voters who viewed him favorably rose 9 points to 36 percent and the percentage who viewed him unfavorably fell 5 points to 54 percent.

It’s been a steady march up, undeterred by scandals that had pundits predicting his political demise. His favorability rating from the late July poll was significantly better than his ratings from a Quinnipiac poll conducted in late May. In that period, his favorability improved from being 49 points underwater to 32 points underwater, despite the claims he made about undocumented immigrants and the jab at McCain’s war record that he made in the interim.

According to Real Clear Politics’ averages of polls, one of Trump’s biggest jumps in support was between July 12 and July 23 — in the heat of the controversy about his “rapists” comment and after the July 18 comments about McCain’s war record — when he edged out former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for first place.

It’s not just the polls that show his undeterred meteoric rise. Trump’s biggest jumps in followers on Twitter occurred on the day of the first GOP debate and the day after, when he gained a total of 139,769 followers, even as he was being grilled by Fox’s moderators and attacking Kelly, according to data provided by Twitter.

His other big jumps occurred this week on Monday and Tuesday, right as he was again lambasting Fox News host Megyn Kelly and throwing Univision and Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos out of a press conference. He gained 63,208 followers. As of Thursday evening, he boasted 3.9 million followers to his Twitter account, the source of his many rants that often come in the wee hours of the night.

All of the controversy only draws more attention to him.

The television shows he touches turn to ratings gold. The most obvious is the first GOP primary debate, hosted by Fox. Expectations were high, but the result blew everyone away, with 24 million viewers on a Thursday night in August with the general election more than a year away. It was the highest-rated telecast in Fox News’ 20-year history.

On last Friday, a live feed of Trump’s campaign rally in Alabama was the most-watched show in all of cable TV that day. That same week, CNN’s hour-long interview with Trump was the most-watched show on the network that day with 1.14 million viewers. NBC’s “Meet the Press” interview with Trump garnered the Sunday show its highest ratings in more than a year.

According to the Associated Press, when Trump has called into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” viewership rose 22 percent from what the talk show averaged 10 minutes prior to his call. On July 24, the size of the audience jumped 47 percent while Trump spoke.

Viewers are not tuning in to see an apology. They seemingly can’t get enough of what Trump does best when he’s called out — go on the attack.





When McCain criticized Trump for alleging that undocumented Mexican immigrants are largely criminals, Trump went to Pheonix, Arizona, dissed McCain and brought along the father of a young man murdered by an undocumented immigrant. His poll numbers kept rising.

When Trump set off a firestorm for denigrating McCain’s war record, he flew to military-heavy South Carolina and slammed McCain’s record on veterans’ issues. His lead increased.

When Rick Perry swung at Trump and said that his tenure as Texas governor gave him more credibility on border security, Trump flew to Laredo, Texas, to tour the Mexican border and hammered Perry’s record on the issue. Trump’s campaign kept surging while Perry’s has gone on life support.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa said he sees the fingerprints of Chuck Laudner, his old campaign manager and Trump’s current Iowa state director, in this approach.

King related a story from his first election to Congress, in 2002, when he debated his Democratic opponent, a city councilman from Oak Bluffs, for a television station in Sioux City. Laudner thought King had won the debate, so he went straight for the Democrat’s home turf, arranging for a local access television station in Council Bluffs to play a recording of it on loop 24-7 in the days leading up to the election.

“That was a small little example of flying the 757 to Laredo,” said King, an immigration hardliner who’s maintained a dialogue with Trump on the issue.

At this point, Carney said, those that have been fuming at Trump ought to have realized that their outrage has little bearing on Republican primary voters. “If the Washington elite wants to hurt Donald Trump, they should endorse him.”

Alex Weprin contributed to this report.