However, something strange has been happening to this Trump supporter, that I have verified is happening to several others as well. Behind closed doors, in hushed voices, and after checking over both shoulders to confirm no one else is within earshot, people you would never expect are confessing to the strangest thing: they too will be voting for Trump. Although such an admission typically comes after such often repeated caveats like, “I don’t agree with everything he says …” or “I’m definitely not a racist …” or “he might have no clue what he’s talking about …,” what matters is that when shielded from public judgment and when no one can see, people admit they actually like some of Trump’s common sense and arguably politically incorrect positions. Why this is significant is because of the most important dark place, where no one else is watching and where an individual’s opinion is safe from ridicule: the voting booth!

Just to prove this theory isn’t merely conjecture and based off of anecdotal evidence, let’s look at some numbers. In the Real Clear Politics average rating of Trump’s Favorable/Unfavorable opinion polls, Trump’s unfavorable rating is 61% and his favorable rating is just 33%. Yet in the Real Clear Politics average for the general election against Hillary Clinton, right now Trump trails her by just four points, 44 to 40. Sure Clinton’s own unfavorable numbers are a reason for why Trump remains legitimately competitive despite his historically high unfavorable ratings, yet a better explanation is because it ultimately seems more socially acceptable and “moral” for the typical voter to tell pollsters they disapprove of Trump, while still being open to eventually voting for him. Furthermore, similar to the “Brexit” vote that caught pollsters completely by surprise, as voters hesitated to reveal their leanings towards what was deemed to be the “unpopular” choice before election day, a vote for Trump is also the anti-establishment and unpopular choice that voters could be holding close to the vest until our big day.