What happened next was this:

Trump turned it around. Now he's viewed fairly well by his party. And now he's quite likely to be the nominee.

But the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Trump's numbers among all Americans hitting a new low for the 2016 campaign. And a tweet from Dartmouth's Brendan Nyhan last week prompted another round of Trump dismissal in some quarters. Look at this unfavorability! How can he possibly win?

The answer is: These numbers might once again change.

AD

AD

There are a lot of things worth remembering here. First, Trump is unpopular, but that unpopularity varies by pollster. In some polls, he's way more unpopular than Hillary Clinton; in others, he's closer. It's worth remembering, as Nyhan shows, that Clinton herself is pretty unpopular for a front-runner. And it's worth remembering that we're still pretty early in this thing, and neither candidate has shifted focus entirely to the general election.

Here's how the two have compared over time within their own parties, independents and overall.

Clinton's been consistently more popular with Democrats than Trump has been with Republicans, but as the chart above shows, he's closed that gap. (We're using Quinnipiac University polling here because they've been tracking both candidates for some time.) Among all voters and independents in Quinnipiac's polls, the net favorability for the two is generally in about the same place.

AD

AD

Notice, too, that as Trump has gotten more popular with Republicans, his overall popularity has improved, because Republicans are dragging him up.

Let's compare to where we were in 2012. Through April of 2012, the figures looked about the same when comparing Mitt Romney to President Obama. Romney trailed with his own party, but among independents and all voters, the two jockeyed back and forth.

But that was through April, before the general election geared up. Here's how things had changed by October.

Romney's support with Republicans had soared, as had Obama's with Democrats. Obama had a good lead with voters overall, which largely reflected the final voting. And of course, Obama won.

AD

The real question here is the extent to which Trump's number with Republicans will spike. In 2012, there was a contingent that was opposed to Romney that might have made observers wonder if the Republicans would back him in November, but they did. This time, the contingent is much larger and much more powerful than it was then.

The favorability gap between Clinton and Trump right now within their own parties is about 25 points. In April 2012, it was 26. The problem for Trump isn't whether or not he's popular enough right now to win an election in November. It's much more if he'll see the same support consolidation that Romney did.