DON’T GET COCKY: Forget the polls, these Rust Belters offer real election insight.

Fran Coombs, managing editor of Rasmussen Reports, sees the numbers this year as very similar to the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton and Trump were neck-and-neck to the end.

In its daily national tracking poll Wednesday, Rasmussen had Trump ahead of Biden by one point for the second day running, after trailing by as much as 12.

The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points, but the trajectory is in the right direction.

Coombs says polls have picked up a “level of Trump hatred [that is] is mind-boggling” and accounts for a high “shy” Trump vote. Republicans are 10 to 15 points less likely than Democrats to divulge their voting intentions.

Democratic talk about “truth and reconciliation councils” and the like seems to be skewing the polls, which in turn skews Democrats’ ability to make sound campaigning decisions.

It’s almost as though they’re trying to lose.