Editor’s Note: Donald Trump is not going away

Just two weeks ago, it looked like Donald Trump’s chances of winning the presidency were dead.

Coming out of the Democratic National Convention and after a stretch of bizarre episodes, the Republican nominee was trailing his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, by double digits in most polls.

Commentators, including myself, stuck a fork in Trump, and nearly every story written about the campaign noted his falling poll numbers.

Some still do, even though Trump has mounted a significant and largely unreported bounce back in recent days.

Tuesday’s national poll from NBC News had Clinton up by 5 percentage points, a significant lead but about half what it was earlier in the month. Polls last week from Pew Research and Rasmusssen had Clinton ahead by just 4 points and 2 points respectively. And on Sunday, a Los Angeles Times/USC survey actually had Trump in the lead by 2 points.

Trump’s climb back to competitiveness isn’t getting as much attention as his sharp fall did. But it’s there, and unexplained.

Perhaps his recent policy speeches, more presidential in tone, are reassuring voters.

Or maybe the latest round of compromising emails involving Clinton are doing more damage than pundits want to believe. But something’s going on.

Trump is still in trouble in some battleground states, including Virginia and Ohio, but he is closing the gap or is leading in a number of others.

This race isn’t over. We should have learned by now that Donald Trump is a candidate that can never be written off.