STUNNING NUMBERS – AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Some Republicans fear that a Trump nomination guarantees a disaster for the GOP in November.  But does it?  From Fox: 

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are locked in a tight race across the country’s most critical battleground states, according to new polling that challenges assumptions the presumptive Republican presidential nominee would enter a general election battle against the former secretary of state as the underdog.

The Quinnipiac University Poll tested a Clinton-Trump match-up in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The two were close in every state, with Trump even edging Clinton in Ohio, 43-39 percent.

In Florida, Clinton led Trump 43-42 percent. The Democratic primary front-runner held the same 1-point edge in Pennsylvania as well.

“Six months from Election Day, the presidential races between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three most crucial states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, are too close to call,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll, said in a statement, also noting that Trump at this point is doing better in Pennsylvania than the GOP nominees in 2008 and 2012.

The polling is still just a snapshot. Most national polls continue to show Clinton leading Trump in a general election match-up, and the overall electoral map is widely thought to favor Democrats in November.

But, as noted by Quinnipiac, no candidate since 1960 has won the race for the White House without winning at least two of the three swing states tested here.

COMMENT:  How could this be possible when we're told Trump has a 70-percent disapproval among women, and horrible numbers among blacks and Hispanics?  I don't know.  One wonders if those numbers may reflect loaded questions in polls.

Bernie Sanders does better than Hillary across the board, but not by that much.  And remember that Trump and the GOP haven't targeted Sanders, haven't defined him.  If, by some chance, Sanders seriously challenges Clinton for the nomination, the result, say, of revelations from the FBI, Trump would go on the attack, and Bernie is vulnerable.

Polls this early in a general-election matchup have little significance, except to challenge the idea that Trump is an automatic disaster, and that he would automatically cost the Republicans the Senate or House, or both.

May 10,  2016