As the Trump Show rolls into New Hampshire, his rhetoric continues to divide – but can his opponents ever break through with those looking for ‘anybody but’?

For a man who has been engulfed this week in the political equivalent of a category five hurricane, Donald Trump is in remarkably good shape. He has been reviled around the globe, labelled a fascist, accused by Hillary Clinton of aiding terrorists and even inspired a British rebellion; yet apart from a hoarse voice he has emerged appearing utterly unscathed.



“We’ve had a pretty interesting couple of days,” he tells a roomful of New England police officers who have come to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to endorse him for US president. He repays the favour by praising their “beauty” – an interesting word to apply to cops – and calls them “some of the greatest people I know”.

He has taken some heat for his remarks on Monday, he tells the crowd, alluding to his call for a “total and complete shutdown” of US borders to all Muslims seeking entry. “Unbelievable … incredible heat,” he says.

But he goes on to insist that it’s all coming right, everything’s going his way. “We have people talking, I will tell you that. And we have them talking very positively. Because people are saying ‘You know, Trump is right … Trump has a point’.”

There is so much braggadocio involved in the Donald Trump Show that many people outside his political bubble have become accustomed to taking everything he says with a very large pinch of salt. But days after he dropped his anti-Muslim bombshell, evidence is starting to build that he might actually be right – the proposal, so abhorrent to so many, has actually gone down well with many conservatives.

A new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal suggests that more Republican voters (42%) are in favour of his incendiary Muslim ban than are against it (36%). While pundits have been busy predicting that this time he has gone too far – no, really – a separate poll from the New York Times and CBS News puts his overall support among Republican primary voters substantially up since the San Bernardino attack in California that killed 14 people. He’s now on 35%, making him the comfortable frontrunner ahead of second place: Senator Ted Cruz, on 16%.

It’s not hard to put flesh on the bones of these poll statistics in the streets of Portsmouth, a pretty little New England town which seems almost too quaint to accommodate the guttural politics of Donald Trump. Yet here is Bill Ball, 67, a retired Verizon executive, out for his daily spin on his Harley and smoking a cigar in the town square.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bill Ball voted for Obama in 2012, but says Trump gets his vote for 2016. Photograph: Ed Pilkington for the Guardian

Like most Americans, he agrees that Trump’s proposals are outlandish, outspoken and “probably a little farfetched”. But like many Americans, that’s precisely why he likes him: “You’ve got to give him credit – he doesn’t care what anybody says.”

Four years ago, Ball voted for Barack Obama to be re-elected as president. This time round he’s minded, bar surprises, to vote for Trump.

Or take Travis Milone, 24, who is quite possibly the only person in America who hasn’t heard of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. When it happened on 2 December he was out at sea with the US Coast Guard and he only returned to port this morning – he learns of the assault from the Guardian.

We need a backbone again, and he’s going to be that for us. We softened up over the years, we have to stop being pussies Travis Milone

Despite being blissfully ignorant of recent events, he too is planning to vote for Trump. “We need a backbone again, and he’s going to be that for us. We softened up over the years, we have to stop being pussies.”

When the Guardian also informs him about Trump’s plan to ban foreign Muslims entering the country, he says: “Sounds good to me.”

Two sides to every coin

But such signs that Trump is consolidating his advantage, that the more outrageous his pronouncements become the more his followers adulate him, tell only half the story. At the same time as he is firming up his lead, his opponents are also gathering their forces ready for a counterattack.

Again, the polls provide clues. The New York Times/CBS poll produced the striking finding that almost two-thirds of all Americans are concerned or downright fearful of a Trump presidency. Even more impressive is the discovery that those visceral anxieties are shared by a third of Republican voters – the very people Trump is trying to reach.

Those folk are also easy to find in Portsmouth town square. Gerry Morrissey, 70, said she finds the billionaire former reality TV star “scary”. “He’s like a volcano. I’m afraid what he will do if he wins, and he’s making the United States look awful.”

Voices like hers give succour to the other 14 Republican presidential hopefuls who have been gasping for attention in a race in which a sole candidate is sucking up virtually all the oxygen of publicity. They are hoping that Trump will soon bump up against a hard ceiling of support beyond which he will be unable to grow, given the deep hostility towards him among so many moderate conservatives and independent voters.

The campaign of Ohio governor John Kasich, who is competing with the likes of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio for the mantle of moderate alternative candidate, shared with the Guardian some private polling they have commissioned from early primary state New Hampshire. It shows that when asked what background they would prefer for the next US president, a third of Republican primary voters said they wanted to see someone in the White House who had never held office before – they were presumably the Trump crowd or followers of former neurosurgeon Ben Carson who revere the non-politician outsider.

But fully 42% wanted to see someone with experience. Similarly, a solid majority of 63% wanted to see the Republican party choose as its nominee a candidate who could appeal to moderate swing voters in order to take on and beat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner.

When it came to a direct, one-on-one imaginary contest between Trump and Kasich, the result was a statistical dead-heat (48% to 49% respectively), indicating surprising vulnerability for the real estate mogul.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Kasich: internal polling shows he could compete with Trump. But is there any available oxygen to stand out from the crowd? Photograph: Jim Cole/AP

“Trump is tapping into the anger of voters who are tired of politicians. But at the same time there’s a growing share of Republicans who understand that he is hurting the party brand,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist unattached to any of the 2016 campaigns.

But there’s a problem for the “anybody but Trump” movement. It may be gathering steam, but it’s also critically hampered by the overcrowded field of candidates that prevents any one of them from rising up.

“There are a lot of people looking around for the ‘other’ candidate, but there’s too many of them to get traction,” said New Hampshire’s Young Republicans chair, Bob Burns, himself a Trump supporter.

The upshot of all this is that Trump is getting bolder, his followers louder, and the “anybody but” opposition more desperate. The bad news for those already fed up with the Donald Trump Show is that this might be just the beginning.