OPINION:
Democrats, mainstream media pundits and other Never Trumpers love to point to polls that paint this White House in a negative light and this president as a renegade ruler, heck bent on inhumanely closing borders because of some supposed racist bent — as if these surveys actually mean something.
But numbers often lie. Numbers often deceive. Numbers often tell partial pictures, not full truths. And when numbers don’t, the number interpreters frequently do.
Now comes a poll that matters.
A survey from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist found 85 percent of Republicans say they’re A-OK with President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall.
The survey also found that 94 percent of Democrats oppose Trump’s national emergency declaration. But so what?
Drumroll, please. Here comes the big takeaway: Democrats don’t vote for Trump.
They never will, no matter what.
So what difference do Democrats’ opinions make on Trump’s border wall, on Trump’s emergency declaration?
All Trump needs for re-election is to win the hearts and minds of Republicans — of conservatives, of patriots, of citizens who’d rather America stay America than morph into some borderless global conglomerate.
“This is not a break-his-base issue,” said Lee Miringdoff, the director of the Marist Institute, about Trump’s declaration, NPR reported. “This is a reinforce-his-base issue.”
Yes, it is.
And it’s Trump’s base, after all, that matters when the votes for 2020 are tallied.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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