The Trump Apocalypse Watch is a subjective daily estimate, using a scale of one to four horsemen, of how likely it is that Donald Trump will be elected president, thus triggering an apocalypse in which we all die.
Donald Trump’s quiet week ended with a bang, as his campaign chairman and chief strategist Paul Manafort resigned on Friday. The departure of Trump’s top campaign functionary—the second time this has happened this campaign season—probably does not augur bad things for Trump, as Manafort’s pro-Russia ties—including serious allegations of wrongdoing—had become a major distraction.
That said, how good can things be going if you have to dump your campaign chairman? The answer is: “Not great, Bob.”
Trump has polled dismally in swing-state surveys released this week, though, a trio of national surveys released on Thursday showed Trump down just 2 points, 4 points, and 4 points respectively in a four-way race, which would be an improvement on other recent numbers.
Trump’s campaign also began to do actual campaign things on Friday, another positive sign for his chances of becoming president and negative sign for those who consider the likelihood of America becoming a post-apocalyptic Mad Max–style wasteland under a Trump regime to be “high to very high.” Specifically, Trump cut his first national general election TV ad and started airing it with a $5 million, 10-day run in a number of key battleground states. His previous general election TV ad spending had been zero dollars and zero cents, so this was an improvement. It still doesn’t come close to matching the $61 million Hillary Clinton has spent so far in national TV ads, though, so it’s not that great a sign for Trump.
On the plus side for anyone for whom the prospect of a Trump presidency doesn’t make them say “oh, what a day, what a lovely day,” the candidate ended his week by ad-libbing some racially insensitive statements.
After a single day at a full horseman, we’re taking the Watch back down to half of a horseman.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
