Forty-two percent of the electorate has a strongly unfavorable view of Donald Trump, and that just seems very unlikely to improve between now and Election Day. Coincidently, 42 percent seems to be close to Trump’s floor in national surveys. At times, he has slipped into the high thirties and at other times he’s even approached 50 percent approval, but most often he’s been stuck in the low forties. This appears to be the shape of the playing field.

As Harry Enten notes for CNN, this is unprecedented. Overall, 69 percent of voters hold strong opinions of Trump, which is the highest mark recorded for any presidential candidate since they started asking the favorable/unfavorable question in 1980. Unsurprisingly, in an average of polls since March, 27 percent have a strongly favorable view of the president, which happens to perfectly match the Alan Keyes Constant. It’s amazing that screenwriter John Rodgers was able to solve the Crazification Factor way back in 2005.

Twenty-seven percent isn’t Trump’s true floor, however, because plenty of people will vote for him despite their deep misgivings simply because they hate or fear the Democrats even more, or because they’re single-issue voters, most often on abortion or gun rights. A few will vote for Trump or a third party candidate simply out of spite for Joe Biden and the Democratic establishment, so Trump won’t need to get to 50 percent in any case.

Yet, with 90 percent of people who hold a negative opinion of Trump expressing a preference for Biden, it’s going to very difficult for Trump to win the popular vote, and almost as hard to win the Electoral College. His plan is to drive up Biden’s unfavorables, and he’ll get an assist on that from Bernie Dead Enders who want to convince you that Biden is some kind of serial rapist. As far-fetched and poorly documented as these charges are, they’re an easier sell than getting people to improve their opinion of Trump. Anyone who helps this effort through some misguided #MeToo reasoning is already dead to me.