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There鈥檚 never been a US presidential candidate like Donald Trump. Just how unusual has his candidacy been? In poring over some poll data Monday morning, we noticed one number that to us symbolizes the surprising nature of his rise to front-runner status.

That number reflects the percentage of Republican voters who have a favorable opinion of him, as a political person. Right now it鈥檚 69, according to the most recent .

The size of the number itself isn鈥檛 what makes it surprising. Sixty-nine percent is pretty good for a favorability rating, but Mr. Trump isn鈥檛 the leader in this particular numerical category, according to ABC/Post data. That would be Ben Carson, who鈥檚 viewed favorably by 71 percent of Republican voters.

Its singularity lies in the fact that it used to be much lower. , Trump was viewed favorably by 57 percent of GOP voters in this same poll series. In May, prior to his announcement that he was going to actually run for president, the corresponding number was ... 23.

That鈥檚 right: Trump his favorability in his party since he started campaigning for the Oval Office. That鈥檚 while he鈥檚 been insulting rivals and past GOP nominees alike while battling with various news figures and blasting out many statements labeled questionable (at best) by fact-checkers.

By itself, such a rise isn鈥檛 completely startling. It happens all the time in presidential politics: An underdog candidate starts out with low favorability, since few people are aware of his or her strengths and faults. The candidate rises in favorability as he or she becomes better known.

But Trump was already famous, due to him being an celebrity over decades. His name recognition was probably close to 100 percent when he jumped in the race.

That means he鈥檚 actually changed people鈥檚 minds about his political prospects, at least in some parts of the GOP. That doesn鈥檛 happen often. As Jonathan Last notes recently in The Weekly Standard, this is one of the ways Trump鈥檚 run has 鈥渄efied the laws of electioneering.鈥�

How did he do this? Most likely, it has to do with the anti-immigration hard line he鈥檚 taken from the moment he entered the race. (It was during his announcement speech that he called Mexicans sneaking over the border 鈥渞apists,鈥� after all.) As has been widely noted, Trump seems to have tapped into a wellspring of anti-immigrant feeling that's resentful of the GOP elite.

His favorable numbers built quickly after that. Since then, they鈥檝e leveled off and bounced around.

But this is not 鈥� repeat, not 鈥� necessarily an indication of future electoral performance. Trump also has moderately high negative ratings in the GOP. Among Republicans, 29 percent hold an unfavorable view of The Donald, according to ABC/Post numbers. That means he has a hard core of supporters, but a hard core of opponents as well.

Among the electorate as a whole, Trump鈥檚 favorability numbers are so far underwater you鈥檇 need a bathyscaph to find them. Democrats (and to a lesser extent self-described independents) so dislike him that he has a 55 percent unfavorable, 37 percent favorable rating, according to .