OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrats and their friends in the media are stunned by the recent poll numbers for former President Donald Trump.
A series of new polls, including one by The Wall Street Journal, shows the former president ties with President Joe Biden, and this stunned the panel on the ABC News show “This Week” on Sunday.
HOST GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, let’s begin with the presidential race, and I want to ask you the question I asked Tim Kaine towards the end there. It — it is, kind of, shocking in a way that, despite all of the baggage that Donald Trump carries, he’s tied with Joe Biden right now.
DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah. I mean, George, when I looked at that recent poll, the Wall Street Journal, I said, “Oh, this could keep me up at night.”
Look, the problem is, and the biggest challenge we face as Democrats — I say “we” because I’m a Democrat — is that young voters, young black and Latino voters, they’re not ready to come back to the party. They’re not even looking at the so-called messaging that’s being sent to them about the economy, about climate change, about student debt relief. They are worried about their future.
And right now, they’re looking for a leader who represents their values and their vision. And I think the president’s campaign is going to have to really, you know, go deep and go hard to motivate those voters to come back within the Democratic Party coalition. Because, without them, it is a tight race, and it’s going to come down to four states.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Susan Page, with every passing month, with every new indictment, Donald Trump seems to be consolidating his control over the Republican Party.
SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: This Wall Street Journal poll, after 91 criminal counts against the president, which only strengthened his position, so I don’t know why we think that a conviction on one of these counts or more would fundamentally change the fact that Trump supporters have baked into the cake the fact that he has these legal troubles.
You know, in the Wall Street Journal poll, if you added the third party candidates, Trump leads narrowly over Biden. That is the situation we find at this point.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And maybe it won’t change anything, Reihan Salam, but Republicans almost unanimously now, on that stage several days ago, would vote for a convicted felon. Did you ever think you’d see the day?
REIHAN SALAM, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE PRESIDENT & THE ATLANTIC CONTRIBUTING WRITER: Well, the truth is that we are in a very polarized moment. And when you’re looking at the Republican Party, it is strikingly unified. If you look at the most conservative voters in the party, they back the former president disproportionately. If you look at more moderate voters, female Republican primary voters, he just really has a lock on both wings of the party, so to speak, and that’s something that any rival has to appreciate and respect.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So what does the rival do, though? Do they — right now, it seems most of them are treating the former president with kid gloves. At some point, is one of the rivals going to have to go after him directly?
SALAM: Well, it looks as though his rivals are hoping that he’s somehow taken off the board. They’re relying on some intervention, perhaps the prospect of the lawsuits proving so burdensome that he decides to step aside. There doesn’t appear to be anyone who wants to frontally attack him with the exception of Governor Christie.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess, at least, other question, Heidi, how is this legal system, process going to play out, and will any of these trials actually come to trial before the voters have basically made up their mind, at least on the Republican side?
HEIDI PRZYBYLA, POLITICO NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: They may well, but if you dig into that “Wall Street Journal” poll, you find that 78 percent of Republican voters say that he was justified to try to turn over the election. So, it’s not going to necessarily matter even if he is convicted and there’s nothing in the Constitution that says even if he’s convicted and goes to jail, that he can’t run a campaign from a jail cell under the worst circumstances.
So, yes, it does look like this is — we’re not in 2016 anymore. We are seeing these mini boomlets like in 2016 of other Republican challengers —
STEPHANOPOULOS: But nobody’s gotten really above 20 percent.
