But it isn’t that simple. If Trump’s comments were hurting him and/or Republicans with voters, we’d expect to see them faring worse after the June/July period in which the comments became public — and Trump rose in the polls.

The opposite happened. Trump’s position among non-white voters improved, substantially, when you look at how he fared in a head-to-head match-up with Hillary Clinton. In a CNN/ORC poll conducted in late June, Clinton led Trump by 67 points among non-white voters. By the end of July, she led by 56 points. By mid-August, 49.

What’s more, in the most recent CNN/ORC polling Trump does better against Clinton with non-white voters than Jeb Bush. (Note the dashed line.) The net effect is that Clinton leads Trump by nine points among all respondents in CNN’s most recent poll, and Bush by eight. In late June, she led Bush by 13 and Trump by 25.