“There is yet another important psychological process working to help Trump: people with money and other trappings of success receive more favorable evaluations from others, regardless of how the success was achieved. This is because success creates positive attributions about the successful individual.”

“It is incongruent to believe that Trump is, on the one hand, rich and successful, and on the other hand, unintelligent, incompetent, ineffective, and not a good leader. ”

“To maintain cognitive consistency, people are motivated to infer intelligence and many other positive traits from the mere fact of success.”

“…In part, that’s because people carry around in their heads lay theories of the causes of good performance and use those theories to ascribe characteristics to high performing groups—or individuals.”

“But notice the conversations and events around you. Every day, you can see people’s statements being accorded undue status and weight because they are wealthy and successful, even in domains irrelevant to their presumed expertise.”

“Success causes people to be perceived as competent and smart, almost regardless of what they say or do, because of people’s desire to believe in a just world. To maintain logically consistent perceptions of the world, people attribute intelligence and skill to those who are successful.”

“Trump’s polling success rests at least in part on the perception that “he is a rich businessman” who therefore must be smart and a great leader. And that perception is not going away unless and until people attack his business record, not his incendiary language and ever-changing political positions.”

http://fortune.com/2015/12/10/donald-trump-perception-bias-success-election-polls/