Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post made the following comment on Facebook about Trump’s non-correction of a New Hampshire supporter’s assertion that the President is Muslim: “Does this hurt Trump? Help him? I have totally lost the ability to know at this point.”
To all the journalists and pundits who have feasted on the Trump Oreo’s (luv Colbert), I must tell you that your present confusion is partly your own fault. Since the dawn of 24/7/365 political news coverage the misuse of public opinion polls has gone from a troubling bad habit to a self respect threatening addiction among American journalists. The reality that Donald Trump is not a serious candidate for any public office has been crystal clear to Chris Cillizza and every other professional journalist at every step of this campaign, but because polls have become so central to media coverage and analysis of politics, even smart pros like Cillizza have had to act as if the polls were registering meaningful electoral support for Trump; that they really do make him the “frontrunner.”
Of course, the truth is that measuring frontrunners purely by opinion polls at this stage of a contest is utter nonsense, but if journalists actually included metrics more indicative of viability (like endorsements, small donor fundraising) they would be questioning the authority of the all mighty polls, which have made their nearly impossible job of finding something to write about when no one is actually paying attention to politics MUCH easier. They would also be opening themselves up to charges of bias and elitism by pols and fellow media pros (i.e. competitors) who would mock them for claiming to know better than their audience.
I definitely do not envy political journalists operating in this environment, which makes consistently smart, relevant coverage of politics pretty much impossible. In this case, the answer to Cillizza's question is yes it does hurt Trump's chances of victory, though those chances were always slim and none anyways. If the question is will it hurt him in "the polls," the answer is who cares, the polls have been registering a very false positive for Trump all along.
POSTSCRIPT
When it’s over, Trump's campaign will be a classic story of a bully who pressed his power over the other kids in the school yard just a bit too far. Over the next several months his ego-fueled miscalculation will become more and more obvious and the kids he’s been bullying (GOP pols and journalists) will become bolder and bolder. It would be great if this drama ends just like “the Scott Farkas affair” but sadly billionaire bully’s never let their victims get close enough to land one definitive reign of terror ending punch in the nose. Trump’s demise will be more gradual and because he will remain ratings gold, he’ll flail around in denial on national TV for a while even after all is lost for him. Finally, he’ll simply revise the history of his ill-fated foray into electoral politics with some sort of Pee Wee Herman-esque “I meant to do that” narrative and go about his merry way.