[Hoot Gibson]

For some reason, Donald Trump continues to think that the socialists who support Bernie Sanders are going to vote for him in November.

Donald Trump Hopes for Boost From Bernie Sanders Supporters
Presumptive Republican nominee counting on Vermont senator’s backers to shift to him, but poll numbers indicate otherwise

Donald Trump, surveying the next phase of his Republican presidential campaign, is counting on a boost from an untapped well of disenchanted voters who hate the status quo, think the system is “rigged” against them and can’t stand Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

That would be supporters of Bernie Sanders.

“I’m hearing we’re going to get close to 40% of his supporters,” Mr. Trump said during a recent campaign rally in Albuquerque, N.M. “The system is rigged against Bernie, so he can’t win” in the Democratic presidential primary. “We’re going to get tremendous numbers from Bernie Sanders.”

But that prediction is a stretch and would require an extraordinary amount of persuasion to execute, if recent opinion polls and interviews with Sanders backers are any indication.

“That’s absurd,” said Frank Pringle, 32 years old, a law student in Richmond, Calif., at a Sanders rally. “He is living in a fantasy world.”

Frank Gamboa, 39, an Uber driver from Alameda who supports Mr. Sanders, is struggling with his general-election options but said, “I cannot in good conscience vote for Trump.”

In Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls over the first four months of this year, just 6% of Sanders supporters felt positively about Mr. Trump, while 90% felt negatively. Faced with a Trump-Clinton choice in the general election, 10% of Sanders supporters would vote for Mr. Trump, 81% would vote for Mrs. Clinton.

The May Journal/NBC poll suggests that Mrs. Clinton could be losing ground; it found just 66% of Sanders supporters would vote for her against Mr. Trump, while 17% would vote for Mr. Trump.

Yet, if Mr. Trump wants to woo Sanders supporters, he will face the formidable obstacle of the Vermont senator’s own virulent opposition to his candidacy and calls for his backers to resist the temptation of Mr. Trump.

“Donald Trump represents a whole lot that I passionately hate,” Mr. Sanders said in an MSNBC interview this month. “If I’m not the candidate, I will do everything that I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States.”