Talk Elections

Not bed wetting like others but just wondering why the polls are tightening in the past few days.

Likely complacency by dems and moving money into states they are never going to win

Its not though. *sigh*

The opposite is happening - Trump's floor is falling out from underneath him as we type.  He will be lucky to lose by Akin's margin.

lol

My guess? statistical noise.

People are analyzing the race all wrong - there isn't a subset of 20% of the voting population going "wait, i'm for trump, wait, i'm for clinton". A huge, whopping majority have already made up their minds, and probably have made it up since at least the conventions if not earlier.

And it shows in the polls - In the two-way, Trump has never done better than 45% or so, and Clinton has never done worse than about 44%. In the four-way, Trump has never done much better than 41%, Clinton has never done much worse than 40%. Clinton is ahead, and has been ahead for a long time.

The only time "The Donald" has ever managed a full on lead in the polls was during The Republican Convention - the exact time when as a Republican you're SUPPOSED to lead.

Pubs are coming home.

Yeah, it really only has a little bit.

How national polls have shifted based on FiveThirtyEight polls-only national polling average:

PERIOD                   DATE           CLINTON   TRUMP   JOHNSON   UNDECIDED / OTHER
Before 1st debate   Sep. 26   42.4   41.0   7.5   9.1 (+1.4)
Before 2nd debate   Oct. 9   44.8   39.7   6.9   8.6 (+5.1)
Before 3rd debate   Oct. 19   45.4   38.8   6.5   9.3 (+6.6)
Today                   Oct. 26   46.0   39.6   5.7   8.7 (+6.4)

Please don't read below if you don't like to hear a negative view of the democratic parties chances in this election...


Sad to say, but a lot of Americans have fallen for the nationalist/libertarian talk radio and the idea that Obama is this or that. We're kind of lucky that Clinton isn't running against ted cruz, rubio or even Jeb as they'd be up 3-5% right now. You can see this everytime Trump behaves is followed by a recovery as a whole lot of our voting population thinks this way and would rather have a republican.

This would be a very bad election for democrats if it wasn't for Trump.

Of course, I expect to be attacked for saying this but this is how I see things at this moment. I expect Hillary to win but maybe by slightly better than Bush 2004 electoral levels whether than Obama's two wins.

I've just been over to the polls page and I see no evidence of this tightening of which you speak

Michael Moore

You need to actually look at the data. Stop panicking, unless you're the type who thrives on it, ie the kind of Democrat who doesn't deserve nice things.

Clinton is winning by at least 6, this 3-5% nonsense is pretty baseless.

simple.

1) +12% is not realistic

2) USA is much more polarized today than even 20 years ago

3) some republicans are rebounding cause they have stopped freaking out.....

Everyone here's already forgotten about the premium hike with Obamacare?

It isn't.

In the 4 way, Trump's down 5 with about 6 percent undecideds. That's bad.

Especially what we know about those undecideds, particularly in key states.

Some people are really going to go mentally insane on election night when Trump doesn't win. I can't wait to see the reactions and to make fun.

i honestly believe this thing is overblown and won't change anything.

1) obama is popular like fresh bread.

2) hillary has nothing to do with O-care anyway

3) this stuff is complex and the republicans have run with "repeal and replace" since years.....old like bill's affairs and the people remember how it has been before.

4) trump has shown nothing which could help.....

I thought that too, but somebody pointed out in another thread that most of the polls ended on or before yesterday.

Again - it's too complicated to have an impact, the media really hasn't paid that much attention to it after 24 hours and most people won't be paying ANYWHERE near the increases being suggested.

Indeed, it is. But it might and probably will be simplified it to 25% HIGHER!!!!111111 F**K OBAMACARE !!!!111
So it will help Trump a bit, of course.

Arrogancy by Democrats? Bad polling?

You are literally an idiot if you vote for Trump.  A vote for him means you have no concept of how the world actually works.

Sadly, roughly half of the country is stupid and deranged.  That's the reason he got nominated in the first place.

if arrogance would make you lose voters, trump would poll 10 under zero.

If I was a Red hack, I would start to panic, when Seriously? is back on track again.

His last post is from October 23, 2016.

It will be Trump's serious comeback :D

He is among Blacks ::)

Let's chill out a bit okay? Civility is a virtue.

Please stop the concern trolling, it isn't.

Stop defending orange fascist!

lots of arrogance shown here. IMO, I'd expect the worse on election day based on the voting patterns of both parties.

Bad polling? No. Arrogance? Somewhat...a lot of us have been teased with and want a double-digit Clinton landslide, but even a 1% PV/272-266 EV victory for her is a major win as it ultimately denies Donald Trump the presidency. In reality, her leads on Real Clear Politics, HuffPollster, and fivethirtyeight have increased and she remains the favorite on Electoral-Vote.com with over 320 EV. She can lose Florida, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, and Iowa at this point and still win. Extremely unlikely. The race could tighten in the next 13 days, but you're just not looking at the right data if you think it will tighten so drastically that Trump sweeps the major battlegrounds and picks up a Solid Dem state. She's going to win, but perhaps not by the 8%+ some of us want.

lol, Cruz would be down by 10.

Wavering Republicans, the 1% of people who are still undecided are coming back to Trump. Hillary is weak so she's unlikely to win a landslide, just she's now very likely to get a margin around Obama 2012 or over. Trump is no longer in active meltdown so it is possible people who want to be able to vote for him will ultimately support him. We need more data to be certain, but Trump is supposed to lose by a 4% margin but if he melts down he loses by more. If he can just hold himself together somewhat for two weeks he can still prevent a landslide, while still losing badly.

Trump tends to tighten a bit when he's not visably in meltdown mode. He still won't win though.

Why would they? Most of the few people on here predicting a Trump victory would merely be pleasantly surprised as opposed to going mentally insane. Predicting something =/= wanting it to happen (I notice that a lot of Americans seem to confuse the two).

It's a 3-4-way race--you're not going to have anybody getting 55%. I'm becoming more confident Clinton will win if the dynamics don't change, as long as people actually show up to vote--it just remains to be seen by how much now.

The race is tightening because Hillary Clinton is an unappealing candidate to Democrats.  The party forced her on the rank and file, going into the tank for her and clearing the field.  This was fine before the e-mail matter went worse than anticipated, but now, Democrats have to deal with voting for a candidate much of America views as having committed a felony, and whose pointing the finger at Donald Trump's issues with women bring up the Bill Clinton Sex Scandals in voters' minds.

In the end, I early voted for Trump.  I was not going to vote for Hillary, but I had, at one point, made up my mind to vote for Johnson.  My heart wasn't in that, however; I'm not a Libertarian and Johnson came off as a Pot Burnout.  But it wasn't without a lot of thought.  Trump's persona isn't what I'm like and isn't what I want my 11 year old son to become like.

In that vein, I think that many wavering Democrats will, in the end, suck it up for Hillary as I did for Trump.  But the polls are tightening NOW because Hillary IS unsavory.  And she's an unsavory candidate that the party forced on the rank and file.  Her unsavory character, the resurrection of the 1990s Bill Clinton issues, et al, have all but taken away the luster of Hillary becoming the First Woman President.  If she still wins, she'll be so happy she hung on that the "First" aspect will be minimized.  No one really wants to be the First Woman to make it across the Atlantic in a lifeboat.

Which is kind of the context for your misery, and why your predictions have been so bloody bleak. Trump's best in the Huffpost average was 43% back in July after the Comey findings. The polling data we have of undecideds showing that they dislike both candidates intensely, but they loathe Trump.

You're going to get shifting around the margins - look at 2008, you had polls in the last 2 weeks that ranged from Obama +3 (Fox News... cough) to Obama +11. Basically what we're getting now.

As I said earlier, there's fairly weak evidence of tightening.  There's also absolutely no indication the tightening, if it exists, is because of the factors you identify.  The polls show that Trump has perhaps gained a little bit of previously disaffected Republicans "coming home."


If she wins by the current polls-projected margin, or even a slightly tightened margin, I don't think the reaction will be anything like, "phew, that was close...so let's not celebrate the 'first woman' thing."  Why would they?  Some long game to avoid setting high expectations?  That's silly.

Ah... I see.

It's not; media just wants to spin the false premise that it is to keep people tuned in to boost ratings that way Election Night ratings will be through the roof. The race has been over for weeks now.

Given how many Republicans have conspicuously declined to endorse Trump, and the fact that Democrats aren't over 50% in polling, I would say that the unsavoriness of Clinton is the only way to explain it.

How many times was Obama over 50% in 2012? Not often and considering a more solid performance from third parties this time, getting over 50% would be a magnificent performance.

You're moving the goal posts around, careful, one may fall on you.

I have 2 theories:

1) Obamacare premium hikes. Those hikes may have scared some undecideds to Trump's camp. Heck maybe even some of "weak" Clinton supporters may have switched sides because of it.

2) This could be a "spiral of silence" starting to make noise. Some of shy Trump supporters are now openly expressing support for Trump, even to a pollster when they probably would not have in the past. The reason for this maybe is because the hotmic tapes are now old news? They may have read some Wikileaks about Clinton?

No. Good lord, I wish people would stop over-analysing this. Some GOPhers are coming home, quite a few aren't. The undecideds are coming down from the fence, and the third parties are dropping. This is all marginal in the grand scheme of things.

Something else to remember in addition to third parties, is that we have numerous R-leaning (via methodology and the pollsters own admissions) daily tracking polls, which is obviously increasing Trump's standing from how weekly/monthly polls would be and keeping it closer than it may actually be.

Well this is no doubt the "October surprise" against Hillary's favor. It could hurt her, but not as bad as the hotmic did for Trump.

Not even close.  Pretty much everything is stacked against the Democrats this year, even without such a lame candidate as Hillary.  One party trying to win a third term in the White House is very difficult.  The populist right has been a very powerful force on the Republican side, and Donald Trump has played them masterfully.  He has won the mantle of the "change candidate," and that gives him a huge advantage.  Bernie Sanders might have given him a run for that mantle, but the populist left scares Americans, while the populist right is now mainstream white America.

Had Donald Trump kept a lid on inflammatory remarks, and had he had a firmer grasp of policy and been better in the debates, he would be winning this election handily.  He could have beaten any other Democrat - Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Russ Feingold, he would have wiped the floor with Martin O'Malley, John Hickenlooper, Andrew Cuomo...

This election cycle was a perfect storm for a Donald Trump.  He captured the mood of a nation and put it in a bottle.  His nomination wasn't a "golden opportunity" for Democrats to paint the map blue.  Not even a bit.

Sad, but true. Farag'ish Trump would be a deal :(

The race isn't "tightening". At most, all that's happening is that Clinton's massive lead is becoming slightly less unrealistic in the averages. It's a combination of two things: a 'bounce' from Trump's meltdowns starting to fade, and Republican enthusiasm for Trump growing a little now that we're into the feeding frenzy of the last fortnight, and it's become a "get behind my team because SCOTUS" situation.

At the risk of getting pounded I have to say I think a lot of people on here are behaving like they say the Right does; living in their own echo chamber.  Every day I look at the tracking polls and my heart sinks. Yeah Hillary is ahead by double digits in the POPULAR vote. Go to the map on 'Electoral Vote' or similar sites and do the math. She has 323 on there today. That total  includes states where her lead is razor thin like FL, NC etc. She is just not seemingly able to put this thing away in FL. I mean for God's sake, what is the problem? A state with tons of Hispanic and black voters? She cannot seem to grab any lead in OH. Move the numbers just a bit and the big Oaf gets to 270.

All the celebration I read on here is premature, especially all the assumption this will be a rout. It won't. . If anyone on here lives in a swing state and supports Hillary, get out and go to work.  Like your life and future depends on it. It does.

We need to be constantly afraid, even if Hillary runs up the score, our fear and anxiety will still be founded.

It's closer and will probably get even closer yet in the next 12 days.

ObamaCare, the Supreme Court, the drip drip drip of Wikileaks and the Clinton corruption, Republicans coming home and it's a tight race.

Clinton has her firewall and it's still doubtful that Trump breaks through and wins, but he has an outside shot.

All the talk of a 12-14 point win and 400+EVs is folly.

twelve days before the election '08 & '12

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Oct23.html
337-171-30(ties)

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Oct25.html
294-244

final

2008 365-173
2012 332-206

I don't think it's over yet, because Trump could still pull a rabbit out of a hat.

I do believe she will win. It is just a bit jarring to see some of the posts on here from folks planning their celebration for election night when it is in part still flying around.

Hillary will run up huge margins in CA NY and other blue states. That doesn't help her one bit in FL or OH. Again, do the math.

maths

Because while "Trump is awful" was good for ratings for a while, "Clinton Smashes Trump" isn't a narrative that will draw eyeballs for the next two weeks. But "Insane Maniac May Still Win!" is great for ratings, especially if nothing else is happening. The fundamentals aren't changing and Clinton is still on track to win.

The narrative might change if there's a juicy scandal, but otherwise look for the easily hyped "Stupid Psychopath May Be Next President!" story to keep rolling.

Not in the US, mate.

It's not tightening really, you have to cherrypick polls to reach that conclusion. He does seem to have moved back some of the Republicans to his side after hitting new lows of in-party favorability after pussygate, but Clinton has also slightly increased her numbers at the same time. The two effects have mostly canceled each other out and the small blips have been little more than statistical noise.

The United States is tops in the world in confidence in our ability to do mathematics.

USA! USA! USA! USA!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-the-polls-disagree-and-thats-ok

Saw the ABC national news tonight. Proclaimed the "increasing tightness" of the race. Then turned around and cited the Qunnipiac state polls (ALL of which showed positive trend for clinton) as proof. lol

Most cable news viewers have a short attention span with the polls (and everything really) so they'll eat it up, and the media can keep getting ratings off of this narrative.

Maybe your son will forgive you in time.

If he survives the nuclear holocaust that you helped bring about.

The people just want to know Trump is sane (& he isn't) & desperately want reasons to vote Clinton.

People have to take into account that she is the most unelectable corrupt dishonest & fraudulent Dem Pres candidate in recent history. As long as Trump is sane & doesn't have major screwups he will make it close!

You're a sad, obsessive and delusional weirdo.

Since when has Trump been sane? Was he sane on the day that he announced his candidacy and said that all Mexicans were criminals, rapists and murderers? Has he been sane since? Even for only one day? I don't think so.

Deplorable clickbait Nate Silver is in a good mood again...
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/

Why do people always compare Trump to Farage? Farage is a very likable person. Farage is the kind of person who can easily sell you a bag of dog poop for 10,000 dollars, and you wouldn't even notice. Trump is the exact opposite of Farage. Trump makes everything look much worse than it actually is, simply because he hates the world so much and everything that is not Trump (or has a connection to) is by definition awful. Farage is a political star in Europe/UK for a reason. And there's a very good reason why his UKIP is now crumbling before our eyes and absolutely without any ability to choose a new leader. Because without Farage at its helmet, the party is nothing anymore. And might even risk disappearing completely. Farage is one of the most charismatic politicians in UK political history. That's why he managed to grow his party that quickly and big as it got within a very short span of time.

Florida and Ohio don't get Trump to 270. He needs states like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia, or Michigan, and he's currently down at least 6 in all of those. You're right that we shouldn't get complacent, but it's not razor-thin like you're implying.

The 60-day race oscillation won't get to an inflection point fast enough for Trump to have a chance.  If the election were held on Nov 28 Clinton would be in trouble. :)

The ~same policies. No?

Yep :)

It's over. The only "rabbit" Trump could pull out of a hat would be changing his personality, and he's missed every previous opportunity to do it. There's no chance left to reintroduce himself even if he were to change; his best hope is to lay low and let some Republicans come home because he isn't humiliating some sympathetic civilian at the moment and making them feel bad about voting for him.

Could Trump win any of these?

()

The model takes it to account and gives 20% Trump. Yeah, I know, you think that 538 is too kind to him, but it's f**king Trump. Even 5% of winning is a great honor :)

Because in spite of Trump's obvious failings, the voters still have trust and character issues with Clinton.

She is simply not to be trusted, and this shows up in polling showing a majority of voters do not trust her.

Aside from the fact that tightening is the usual dynamic after the third debate?

I can't say that Hillary Clinton is having a great week by any stretch of the imagination. Wikileaks keeps coming. The Clinton Foundation scandal is starting to rear its ugly head. Tim Kaine can't draw flies to a rally. The list goes on and on.

Not at all. Farage and UKIP hate the EU and foreigners in general, including the foreigners who already live in the UK, while Trump hates everyone who is not himself or his closest family or who is constantly praising him (like Putin or Giuliani). There's an enormous difference. If you can't see it, you must be as blind as one can get.