Trump highly unpopular in swing states

I guess Donald Trump can claim 'victory' with the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate this morning but his shenanigans over the last month haven't done much to endear him with swing state voters. During April we've polled Trump in the battleground states of Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada and in all four of those states we've found that at least 59% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of him.

In Nevada Trump's favorability is a -27 spread (32/59), in North Carolina it's a -35 spread (27/62), in Iowa it's a -34 spread (27/61), and in New Hampshire it's a -33 spread (27/60).

There are two primary variables driving Trump's bad numbers:

-Republicans don't really like him that much. In New Hampshire his favorability with them is 46/40, in Iowa it's 41/40, in North Carolina it's 45/42, and in Nevada it's 51/37. He's doing well in primary polls because the GOP voters who do like him are pretty inclined to name him as their top Presidential choice. That's different from say a Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney who are mostly well liked even by Republicans for whom they are not the first choice for the nomination. With Trump there is not as much of that middle ground- you either want him as the nominee or you dislike him. Those kinds of numbers will maybe give you a long shot chance at the nomination but they don't make you a viable contender in November.

-Trump is completely toxic to independent voters. His favorability with them in Nevada is 35/57, in Iowa it's 29/58, in New Hampshire it's 23/63, and in North Carolina it's 28/61. His recent antics have ingratiated him to a meaningful chunk of the far right Republican base, but he's completely turned off the folks in the center whose votes often determine who comes out on top in Presidential contests.

To put Trump's numbers into some context he is less popular than Sarah Palin in all four of these states- her favorability in North Carolina is 33% to his 27%, in Nevada it's 34% to his 32%, in New Hampshire it's 28% to his 27%, and in Iowa it's 29% to his 27%.

If Trump's goal was to get a lot of attention this month he's certainly succeeded. If his goal is really to get elected President it was an utter failure.