Donald Trump’s Historically Strong with His Base, and That’s His Problem

Both polls show that Trump has a considerable lead among self-identified Republicans: 93% to 5% for Biden (Monmouth) and 92% to 4% (NBC News / Wall Street Journal).

What's the point: Trump made a clear game during his presidency to satisfy the Republican base, and the poll indicates that this effort is clearly paying off. Its base does not abandon it, even if its overall number remains low.

Trump's problem is that he has pretty much tapped that reservoir of support.

See Trump and Biden's one-on-one polls

After making a big effort to reach the score in the primaries against virtually no competition, Trump won just under 95% of the Republican primary vote overall. This is very similar to the general election ballot placing it at just under 95% of the Republican vote. It will be difficult for him to go far beyond that.

Indeed, Trump has higher support among Republican voters right now than any Republican since at least 2000. You can see it in the ABC News / Washington Post poll. That one, like Monmouth and NBC / Wall Street Journal, has Trump almost 95% (94%), while Biden only lingers at 4%.

Dating from 2000, no Republican has ever had more than 91% of Republicans backing him at this point in the ABC News / Washington Post polls. The average Republican had 84% of the Republicans behind him. A strategy based on these elections made much more sense than a strategy during the Trump era.

(The historical nature of these numbers holds if we include independents who look republican.)

Maybe Trump thinks he doesn't need to change his strategies because he ignored most people's advice and still won in 2016. This is a mistake. Beyond the fact that there is good evidence that Trump was much more moderate than ruled, Trump had much more room to grow with the base in 2016. He scored only 74% of self-identified Republicans in an ABC News / Washington Poll just taken around this point - the lowest of all Republicans since 2000.

Where Trump is weak is outside the Republican base. In the ABC / Washington Post (figures are similar for Monmouth and NBC News / Wall Street Journal), Trump is 39% among independents and 3% among Democrats. These two figures are lower than all Republicans at this point in the 2000 ABC News / Washington Post polls.

In other words, there is much more potential support for Trump outside of the basic Republican base. Trump, however, does not seem interested in making the effort.

If Trump doesn't change things, he may find that the base on the other side is larger than his. Biden wins a larger share of Democrats in an average of live polls (including an NPR / PBS News Hour / Marist College poll) this week (94%) than Trump wins the Republicans (92%). The average poll, as has been true for almost every year, has measured more Democrats than Republicans in this country.

By pursuing his basic strategy first, Trump ensures that he will not see the bottom fall. He will find, however, that building the coalition necessary to win will be extremely difficult.

This story was updated to include the results of an NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll on Sunday.