Althouse

More than four in ten Americans (43%) agree with the idea that “young people are being peer pressured into being transgender,” while 55% disagree. A majority of Republicans (74%) agree, compared with 41% of independents, and 21% of Democrats.

White evangelicals (75%), Latter-day Saints (70%), and Hispanic Protestants (60%) are the only religious groups in which majorities of adherents say that young people are being peer pressured into being transgender. By contrast, just under half of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (48%) and white Catholics (47%) believe this to be true, along with 42% of Black Protestants, 41% of other Protestants of color, 35% of Hispanic Catholics, and 32% of members of other non-Christian religious. Religiously unaffiliated Americans (27%) and Jewish Americans (25%) are the least likely to agree that young people are being peer pressured into being transgender.

Fewer than four in ten Generation Z Americans (36%) and millennials (38%) agree that young people are being peer pressured into becoming transgender, compared with about half of both Generation Xers (47%), boomers (48%), and members of the Silent Generation (47%).

“If your main argument to Republican voters is that Trump wouldn’t be the party’s strongest nominee, you’ve got a heck of a challenge ahead of you,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem with assessing electability. As we found in our polling during the 2020 Democratic primaries, if voters back a candidate based on issues or character they also tend to feel that candidate is the most electable. However, this still underscores the larger point in this poll. If your message to voters who support Trump is he cannot win, you are going to hit a brick wall. Even if you eat into the group who thinks he is only ‘probably’ the strongest candidate, you may still not capture enough of the Republican electorate to overcome Trump’s hardcore base support.”

Trump's lawyer said in his opening statement, quoted in "Jury in Carroll's civil case against Trump to hear closing statements" (WaPo). Closing statements are expected to begin today.

On Thursday, even after his attorney had said Trump would not testify, he made comments to reporters in Ireland suggesting he might make a surprise appearance at the trial after all.

His attorneys did not call witnesses to testify — instead opting to put on a case through cross-examination of Carroll and others who did testify. Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly said the story was made up by Carroll and a pair of her friends.

Elsewhere in today's Washington Post, we see news of a new poll — "Biden faces broad negative ratings at start of campaign, Post-ABC poll finds" — that shows Trump enduring:

When asked who they would support in 2024, 44 percent of voting-age adults say they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump while 38 percent would definitely or probably vote for Biden. The remaining 18 percent are either undecided or gave another answer.

Trump haters can say, yeah, but the whole 18% in the middle is going to have to go for Biden in the end. Trump is stuck with his 44% diehards, but nobody else can stand him. Right? Isn't that how they have to keep from going crazy?