For these following reasons:
1. It is unnecessary to win a majority of the popular vote, as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush demonstrated. But one need be reasonably close. Trump won because even if Hillary Clinton won the plurality of votes she loaded up in states in which she didn't need to get as many as she needed -- as in California and New York. Our Electoral College makes it necessary to win states, and not votes.
This is not a democracy. Getting the right votes matters more than getting the plurality in this system.
It is surprising that Donald Trump got a smaller share of the popular vote than did such electoral losers as Romney in 2012 and Kerry in 2004.
But the next time the third parties could effectively bleed more support from Donald Trump.
Anyone who wants to deny the polling results is welcome to do so. But so far, President Trump has approval numbers far below what he needs at the start of a campaign season from which to recover.
Approval
Trump ahead Trump behind
55% or higher 45% to 49%
50% to 54% 40% to 44%
45% to 49% under 40%
Ties are in white.Disapproval:
60% or higher (deep red)
57% to 59%
55% to 56%
50% to 54%
46% to 49%
43% to 45%
42% or lessTies are in white.
This is the latest credible polling data. I pay much attention to "disapproval" because as in other things, bad early opinions are hard to undo. Yes, a seven-year-old child who plays an agonizing performance on his violin might end up a virtuoso... but we have a seventy-year-old President here. That screeching performance seems unlikely to get better. I expect Donald Trump to get wrong notes and play out of tune.
Of course it is a long time until the first primaries and caucuses of 2020, and all sorts of things can happen. To change the horrid approval-disapproval numbers of him he will need to change the political culture. Possible, but highly unlikely. Ronald Reagan could do that enough to transfore 51% of the vote for him to 57% of the vote for him in 1984.
It's going to take much more than support in the 30s
Those states look lost to him at this stage.
It is possible to win with an early approval rating of 26% approval and 45% disapproval. So long as one keeps the disapproval rating from going appreciably above 50% one can win because one can turn undecided voters into acquiescing voters.
...I'm not saying that President Trump can't win. If I had money to invest I would not be investing in entities whose success depends upon a second term of Donald Trump.
Can he win? Sure. A 2-14 NFL team can go 11-5 the next year, get through the playoffs, and win the Super Bowl because the previous season means nothing in the next year. But everything must go right for President Trump. Basically, either the accusations of misconduct of himself and his associates in the 2016 election must turn into 'egg in the face', or people must come to accept that such is fine; the political climate must change so that people come to accept that rapacious plutocrats best know what is good for the rest of Humanity better than Humanity itself knows; or that electoral tampering (including intimidation or vote-rigging) works.
