Trump is winning white voters by 5 points (NBC/WSJ), 12 points (Post/ABC) or 14 points (CNN). McCain carried that group by 12 points in losing the overall race by over 7 points. Romney lost to Obama by less than 4 points, but he carried whites by 20 points. Again, Trump has a long way to go to get back into the race.

Republican defections remain a huge problem for the GOP nominee, more than likely offsetting any Democratic voters or previous non-voters Trump can attract. (This was so even before the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, Evan McMullin, announced his candidacy as an Independent.)

The new Post/ABC survey shows 5 percent of Democrats defecting to Trump, a very normal level of defection.

But Clinton is already getting 11 percent of Republicans, a larger percentage than any Democrat has received over the last four elections. (See my earlier columns about this subject, here and here.)