“Many Republican voters have an unfavorable impression of him — worse still, many don’t even think he has the knowledge, temperament or qualifications to be president,” Cohn wrote. “If Mr. Trump can’t reunify Republican-leaning voters, Mrs. Clinton really could win in a landslide.”

Today brings new polling that suggests these conditions may indeed may taking shape.

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The new NBC News/Survey Monkey Tracking Poll finds Clinton leading Trump among registered voters nationally by 50-41. Even more crucially, Clinton is demolishing Trump on the question of who has the right personality and temperament to be president: 42 percent of voters say Clinton does, versus only 17 percent who say Trump does.

But note Trump’s numbers among Republicans on the temperament question:

Fewer than one in five Republicans believe Trump has the right personality and temperament to serve as president. (By contrast, 39 percent of Democrats say that about Clinton.) Now, this is only one poll, and the temperament numbers for both candidates were perhaps driven downward by the question wording, which did not poll each individual trait in a separate question, instead asking respondents to pick all the traits that apply.

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But this general finding shows up in other polls, too. A recent Washington Post/ABC News survey found that a surprisingly high 23 percent of Republicans agreed that Trump is “not qualified to serve as president,” while 74 percent said he is qualified. Among all adults, 61 percent said Trump is not qualified. Meanwhile, the Post/ABC poll also found that a staggering 34 percent of Republicans say Trump does not have the right kind of personality and temperament to serve effectively as president, while 67 percent of overall Americans said the same. For Clinton, the percentages of Democrats who said she was unfit for the job by both those metrics was in single digits, while large majorities of overall adults gave her the thumbs-up on them.

This basic imbalance is one of the under-appreciated narratives of this race. It regularly gets lost amid claims that both candidates are historically disliked. While this is true, the underlying and arguably more important story is that in spite of this, only one of the two candidates is widely seen as fundamentally prepared and qualified for the presidency, while the other is widely seen as unprepared and lacking in the basic qualities required for it. And this core imbalance goes deeper: Only one of them is seen as unfit by surprisingly large percentages of voters from his or her own party.

To be clear, Trump could obviously still win this race or make it very close, if he succeeds in uniting Republican voters in the home stretch. It seems very likely to tighten. External events or new Clinton revelations could still shake things up. But the conventions are over, and the Clinton team — operating with a candidate with very real weaknesses of her own — appears to be well on its way towards accomplishing its goal of making this election all about Trump’s increasingly obvious temperamental unfitness and lack of qualifications for the job. With a healthy assist from Trump himself, of course.

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign comes to an end share Share View Photos View Photos Next Image MANHATTAN, NY - The morning after loosing to Republican Nominee Donald Trump in the general Presidential election, Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, accompanied by former President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Senator Tim Kaine and Anne Holton, speaks to supporters and campaign staff in a packed ballroom at The New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York on Wednesday November 9, 2016. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

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* CLINTON HOLDS WIDE LEAD IN VIRGINIA: A new Washington Post poll finds that Clinton leads Trump in Virginia by 52-38 among registered voters and by 51-43 among likely voters. Note: The poll also finds that Trump is viewed unfavorably by 70 percent of women and 70 percent of white college graduates.

This once again suggests that Trump’s failure to broaden his appeal is putting him at a major disadvantage in states that are supposed to be very close (as Virginia was in 2012).

* QUOTE OF THE DAY, EVERYONE-HATES-TRUMP EDITION: The Post write-up of the new Virginia poll includes this gem from a Republican-leaning voter in the state:

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Walt Purnell, 71, a retired business executive from Ashburn, had hoped to vote for Jeb Bush — or John Kasich. Or Marco Rubio. Or Chris Christie. But Trump? No way. “I think he’s a failure, I think he’s a fraud, I think he’s a con artist, I think he’s insane,” Purnell said.

Have we mentioned that this election is becoming a referendum on Trump’s fundamental unfitness for the job?

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* CLINTON OWNS THE AIRWAVES: Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and the First Read crew serve up these striking numbers:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign…has spent $61 million over the airwaves, while pro-Clinton outside groups have chipped in an additional $43 million. That’s a combined $104 million in total ad spending for Team Clinton. But in that same time frame, Donald Trump’s campaign still hasn’t spent a single cent on a general-election ad, with two pro-Trump outside groups coming to the rescue with $12.4 million over the airwaves. That’s a nearly 9-to-1 advantage in ad spending.

It’s another fundamental Trumpian disadvantage that could grow more pronounced in the home stretch.

* TRUMP WOULD PROBABLY SEND TROOPS TO MIDEAST: The New York Times makes a good point about Trump’s big foreign policy speech yesterday:

Though Mr. Trump made no reference to whether he would send more American troops back to the region, that appeared to be the clear implication. The kind of relentless attacks on the Islamic State he advocates — along with taking and holding the oil fields, which may well be a violation of international law — would require a considerable presence by American troops or their allies, and foreign bases to launch the drones.

Trump’s promise is basically to promise to crush the terrorist enemy while vowing no messy entanglements abroad. It’s a scam.

* TRUMP’S POLICY GIBBERISH: Trump is now proposing to impose a new ideological test on those trying to enter the country from areas scarred by terrorism. CNN analyst Peter Bergen explains why the idea is half baked at best:

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This seems unworkable. For example, would anyone sitting for these tests volunteer that they had secret proclivities for jihadist terrorism? Also, Trump didn’t specify what countries would be affected by this new test. But France has a serious domestic terrorism problem — would French citizens be subjected to this kind of test?…In short, Trump didn’t say who would be targeted for these ideological tests, saying only that he would consult the State Department about how to approach this issue.

The idea is really an effort to repackage Trump’s Muslim ban as somehow being in sync with American values.

* TRUMP’S BIG LIE ABOUT ISIS: Trump continues to claim (as he did in his speech yesterday) that Obama policies were the chief cause of ISIS. Glenn Kessler corrects the record:

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This is false and facile. The terror group is the direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003….At best, one could argue that actions that Obama failed to take (over Clinton’s opposition) helped contribute to the growth of ISIS.

What’s always missing from Trump’s account is that Clinton was more hawkish than Obama was. Meanwhile, Kessler’s interview with author Joby Warrick explores all this in more detail.

* TRUMP MAY COST GOP A GENERATION OF VOTERS: Trump is getting slaughtered among younger voters. Michael Gerson reflects on the reasons for this and its potential consequences:

Younger voters are less likely than other age groups to regard racially inclusive language as “politically correct.” They are less likely to believe in “reverse discrimination” and to embrace anti-immigrant attitudes….Young people understand the logo of the Republican nominee…as conveying a message of exclusion. These are the first serious political impressions of my younger son, voting in his first presidential election this year. It is the way to lose a generation.

Never Trump conservatives and Democrats both agree that the GOP’s nomination of Trump provides a unique opportunity to tarnish the GOP among a whole new generation.

* CLINTON PREPARES FOR SLIME-FEST DEBATE: Politico’s Annie Karni reports that the Clinton team is preparing for the absolute worst at the debates with Trump:

The person picked to be Hillary Clinton’s sparring partner in her upcoming debate prep sessions is expected to confront her about the death of Vincent Foster, label her as a rapist’s enabler, and invoke the personally painful memories of Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers….one of the key components of that prep…is finding a person who can stand in as Donald Trump during mock debates and launch personal attacks…that will make the real Trump look tame by comparison.