While national polls are pretty consistent in showing Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump, you have to remember that darn Electoral College, which makes national polls next to meaningless. The important thing is who wins the swing states.
And in new polls of swing-states, Trump is leading Clinton in the mother of all swing states, Florida. He’s also leading in Pennsylvania, and tied in Ohio. The same polls show that Clinton has higher unfavorable ratings in those same three states than Trump.
So if you think that Trump has absolutely no chance of winning the election and becoming president, think again.
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It’s an odd election year when the GOP has put forward the only candidate who might be able to lose to Hillary Clinton while the Dems forwarded the only candidate who could lose to Donald Trump.
Maybe that’s dramatic… but by the Flying Spaghetti Monster I sure do wish Biden had thrown his hat in.
Finally, we agree on something.
Or we could say it’s the election of the least, least favorable candidate.
I believe that Ted Cruz easily trumps Trump in the losing to Clinton department.
I’m skeptical until we see more than one poll. That’s quite a departure from previous polling in these states, and the only thing that’s really changed is that Trump has managed to go a few weeks without saying anything truly outrageous. Trump would have to pick up all three of these states without losing any states Romney won in order to win. That’s not impossible, but it still looks unlikely.
It will be interesting to see how the polls hold up this year. This election has already blown a lot of expectations out the window, and I suspect that many of the pollsters’ likely voter models will see similar disruptions.
Drew, also Clinton had all new email news.
I stand by my original statement, that we should not be complacent in thinking that Trump has no chance of winning.
The Clinton emails won’t be going away, either. Something like five Congressional committees are holding hearings on the decision not to prosecute Clinton.
Of course, after the Lynch incident, there’s always Bill to factor in as another wildcard. If either Clinton can avoid another unforced error, you’d have to give her a decided edge.
As I look, the odds on 538.com are about 70/30, down from her recent high of 80/20, so it’s rather volatile and wouldn’t call it a slam dunk on Nate Silver’s account. He’s good but not infallible. Still…pretty damn good odds.
Considering Trump is, as aptly described by Ralph Nader recently, “un-selfcontrollable” (sp?), the only question is how outrageous he needs to get before swing (and swing-able) voters make the switch, or just get switched off (because there is a sizable demo that simply won’t vote Hillary).
Of course it goes without saying, there’s always the possible wildcard we don’t know about yet, because it hasn’t yet been played. And in this election cycle, three months without another wildcard is practically unheard of.
How about Drumpf suing his former campaign worker? Work for Drumpf, get sued.
And as Nate Silver keeps pointing out, even at 80 to 20% odds, that still means that Trump will win one out of every 5 elections. It does not mean he won’t win this one.
Nothing in the email news was actually ‘news’, though. I’m sure it hurt, but I still see this poll as an outlier until we have more confirmation. Swing states are swing states for a reason. It would be highly unusual for her to be maintaining such a lead in national polls while suffering such a significant drop in Florida.
I agree that we shouldn’t be complacent, but this doesn’t do much to change my opinion on the state of the race.
And… a new national poll from the NY Times / CBS shows that Clinton has lost her advantage and is now tied with Trump. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-poll.html
Drew, it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t new, it still keeps a Clinton “scandal” in the news and on voters’ minds. It plays into both Trump and the overall GOP’s argument that anyone associated with the government is corrupt, inept, or both. That helps an outsider like Trump, despite his own obvious corruption, seem like a better alternative… somehow.
Two variables that pollsters may not capture accurately
1) The number of hispanics and other immigrants registering to vote
2) The number of votes 3rd, 4th party candidates may get from voters who are thinking their voice needs to be heard but instead may end up voting for an outcome akin to jumping from the frying pan and into the fire
538 recently showed Texas as “leaning” to Trump. Leaning. That, my friends, is progress.
I guess you have to be “leaning” pretty hard in order to vote for Trump.