"They don't know how to explain it. It's not possible. Nobody can turn their unfavorable around, especially that big, 63 unfavorable back in May to 61% favorable?"

"That's a 60-point-some-odd shift [for Donald Trump in Iowa].  No number's ever done that before.  They even admit in this poll they have never, ever seen this before. Numbers just don't reverse themselves like that in a space of a few months or ever, especially when the politician in question is totally known by the electorate.  Once you are both totally known and broadly disliked -- 63% Trump back in May -- you're doomed. One hundred times out of 100 times you are doomed.  You cannot recover from that, except Trump has.  Here's [WaPo's Chris] Cillizza: 'In the almost 20 years -- gulp -- I have spent following politics closer than close, I've never seen anything like the total reversal in how Trump is perceived by Republican voters. It is, quite literally, unprecedented.' You know what else bugs 'em about it?... They haven't had anything to do with it.  Trump goes over their heads.  Trump reversing his favorables and unfavorables is totally on Trump.  The media hasn't helped.  If anything, the media has been trying to cement unfavorability numbers on Trump... That this guy, without their help, in fact, with them working against him, has totally reversed in a matter of five months, what people think of him.  They think it isn't possible, A, and especially it isn't possible, B, without them helping.  And it's not just the media that are perplexed.  The Republican wizards of smart who concocted this theory on how Trump had peaked and it was just a matter of being patient and wait and he'll blow himself up because he can't get anymore popular than whatever he is now.  That was their theory.  He's too well known.  He's too well known now.  There's no way he can change.  And yet he has."

Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday, making some good points, though "60-point-some-odd shift" is bad math. Iowa's opinion of Trump was 27% favorable and 63% unfavorable last May and is now 61% favorable and 35% unfavorable. That's a 34-point increase in favorability, not 60 points. Rush was double counting. There's a 28-point change in unfavorability, but that 28 switched positions to favorable. You can't add those numbers together. They're the same people. I suspect the change is that people have become accustomed to the idea that Trump hasn't toppled, that the obvious ways of attacking him have failed, so he seems to be a credible candidate. In that sense, the media's attacks have helped Trump, because he got the opportunity to very conspicuously show how he can stand his ground.