"Rasmussen Reports’ latest White House Watch survey finds Hillary Clinton with 42% support among Likely U.S. Voters and Donald Trump with 41%. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson picks up seven percent (7%), while Green Party nominee Jill Stein again has two percent (2%) of the vote, according to our latest national telephone and online survey. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Yesterday, Clinton took a two-point lead – 43% to 41% – after ending last week behind her Republican rival by an identical margin. She jumped ahead by seven at the beginning of last week following the airing of a video showing Trump making graphic sexual remarks, but the race evened out again following the candidates’ second debate. Their final debate is tomorrow night.
Eighty-five percent (85%) of voters say they are now sure how they are going to vote, and among these voters, Clinton and Trump are dead even at 47% apiece. Johnson gets five percent (5%) support, Stein two percent (2%). Among voters who still could change their minds, it’s Clinton 37%, Trump 30%, Johnson 26% and Stein seven percent (7%)." Rasmussen
————
Well, which is it? Is she ahead by 12% or is Rasmussen right?
LA Times has him up 1.5 (most accurate in 2012), PPD has him up 1 (Most accurate in 2014). Richard Baris, the PPD pollster, thinks a lot of the polls are push polls or weighted wrong.
LondonBob
I am hearing a lot of anecdotal stories of the great number of Trump signs outside the big cities. pl
LB,
I’ve been saying this whole election when you break down the metrics the polls aren’t reliable for many of them. A 500 person poll that oversamples D+20 with the MOE starting at 5 isn’t a poll, it’s an attempt to shape a narrative.
Rasmussen has a long-established reputation for producing GOP-friendly results, though it’s still among the serious polling organizations. I’d expect the actual state of things to be a couple of points above Rasmussen, but well below 12%.
See http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
Sir,
Hillary is awful on all the issues near and dear to Arizona, but somehow she is “tied” in this state. She is supposedly only behind by 4 in Texas. She is unable to fill a junior college gym while Trump draws crowds of thousands.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The Washington Post called Rasmussen The GOP’s Cure for the Common Poll. You have to consider the source, yes, but you also have to consider Rasmussen’s track record, which consistently skews Republican.
This article based on “news cycle” data research indicates that D Trump is an unintended consequence of the DNC trying to fragment the Republican voters in the early stages of the campaign.
He was one of the “Pied Piper” candidates that they kept in the news cycle to push out J. Bush. This researcher’s hypothesis was confirmed in one of the leaked emails. LOL.
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/10/russian-artificial-intelligence-expert.html
“The eccentric billionaire popped up last year into the presidential elections like a jack-in-the-box. Messed all Republican plans for the White house having crept into their ranks. And became a headache for the Democrat Hillary Clinton and her entire party…
Trump was hyped … by the Democratic party itself.
– Impossible?!
– May be. But I could not even imagine this. Therefore concluded about the owners of the United States. It turns out that the Democrats back in April 2015 contemplated about how to win elections. Some of them came up with the “brilliant” idea to assist in the media promotion of marginal candidates from the “enemy party” so those at the stage of the primaries pushed the real contenders out of the race.
The main real candidate of the Republican party, behind whom were concentrated enormous financial resources, was considered to be Jeb Bush. So with the help of the Democrats, the media, America and the UK hyped the Republican Trump.
– Is this your guess?
– A few days ago Wikileaks posted another batch of DNC emails. There is a very interesting document from April 7, 2015
So at the start the media promoted Pied Piper candidates from the “enemy party”. Because Cruz and Carson were quite respectable people, the emphasis was on the eccentric Trump, whom many then considered a buffoon.
If in 2015 Democrats made efforts to promote Trump, now began a chain reaction. The person who was given the role of a puppet, thief of votes, has suddenly become so popular among Republicans that they had no choice but to write about him. He became media-self-sufficient. The whole year according to my content analysis he was the leader by frequency of mentions in the leading American mass media.
It continues today, when the acute phase of the election campaign has begun and buckets of dirt are pouring from one and the other side.
I made a chart which shows for the last month and a half Trump leading on the frequency of mentions in the media headlines. Press, TV would love to stop, but they can’t live without Trump. The amazing thing is that in each of the analyzed media, he is also ahead of Hillary.”
So is D Trump going to have the last laugh? It is so close that the Borg is worried enough to try and silence Wikileaks.
My rural MD county traditionally has Republican signs in the rural areas & Democrat signs in town, especially around the college. “Professor’s row” is normally a wall of blue posters. This year the rural areas have lots of Trump posters; but, I’ve only seen 2 Hillary posters in town. It’s irrelevant because MD will go strongly Democratic because of the DC suburbs & Baltimore voters.
Also I just finished a road trip to NM & back & saw only 1 Hillary bumper sticker in 5 days on the inter states.
If I could change my name to “None of the Above”, I could be President.
Col.,
Even in Ann Arbor, not a big city but a very liberal one, the pro-Hilary signs are pretty scant. There is none of the enthusiasm for Democrats that existed in the elections from 2004-2008.
The media are trying to blackpill us by making us think everyone else is turning anti-Trump.
Yes indeed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/politics/donald-trump-signs.html
“Over the course of eight days, while traveling some 3,000 miles by motorcycle across the northern United States, I was steadily confronted by presidential yard signs.
“I idly recorded those in support of Donald J. Trump until, after the first few days, the number approached 100. I eventually lost count.
“Those in support of Hillary Clinton were comparatively easy to keep track of: I traveled nearly 2,500 miles before I saw a single one.
“By the end of my trip, I’d spotted a whopping five.”
In this big city — well, NW San Antonio — either sort of sign is very rare and those few about equally divided between H and D. Bumper stickers are also not in evidence.
http://news4sanantonio.com/news/san-antonios-voice/whats-up-with-political-signs-this-year
Nate Silver called the Republican primaries wrong, so I can’t trust his methodology anymore. I’m going to Real Clear Politics, which reprints a variety of polls from a variety of sources.
Certainly the way it is in the valley of Virginia. A quick drive through the towns along I81 shows many Trump signs, very few whats her name. But, the Dems generally discount the utility of signs, so that may affect the relative numbers. Us rural types value them as a show of force.
Weighting may well be the polling variance. Deciding what makes a likely voter often changes raw numbers materially.
Thanks for your response to me last week. Was away from access so couldn’t say tku then.
lefty
You can’t see much from I 81. Rte 11 which goes through the towns paralleling I 81 would be a better sample. pl
In my pretty liberal town in Massachusetts (where Hillary went to college), I haven’t seen too many Clinton/Kaine signs. No where near the number of Obama signs in 2012. I’ve seen a few Trump signs. I know this is anecdotal, but my neighbor, a middle-aged Indian-American women, Cornell grad, professional, is a BIG Trump supporter. She was telling me that her whole family back in NY is supporting Trump. Another neighbor, a middle-aged woman, made it clear in a conversation that she is supporting Trump. Neither of them has a Trump sign or bumper sticker visible. Now, I know in my state Hillary has it locked up. But still, from this anecdotal evidence I gotta wonder if there could be a surprise which forces DHS and Jeh to make good on their talk and step in and invalidate the result.
From the left central coast (California), you still see Bernie stickers and even some Obama stickers, but almost no HRC bumper stickers. So only 4 years ago, the Dems were far more enthusiastic than today.
Trump signs are all over my normally democratic, small-town Iowa county.
Thanks for the link. One of the most fascinating analyses I’ve ever read. Could have been written by Gogol, almost.
Yeah, you see some along Rte. 15 in Frederick and into central PA. Huge Trump billboard heading south I-81 near Scranton. I was in Poconos area recently and saw lots of Trump signs. Same in upstate NY and Finger Lakes region. Where I’ve seen the most Trump signs is Boston’s South Shore, west of the Irish Riviera (Hanson, Pembroke, Bridgewater, Abington, et al.). You see huge homemade signs on trailers and even Trump flags flying. A lot of cops, firefighters, tradesmen in those parts. My wife and I were driving through (Easton?) and noticed that damn near every lawn had a Trump sign.
IMO, The Rasmussen polls probably aren’t too far off the mark with regards to what people who answer the phone think. However, I believe this election will come down to what people will actually do on Nov 8. Based on various inputs that are available to me, Trump supporters are hyper-motivated and Clinton supporters less so. Just about every Trumpist will get out and vote. Some Clintonistas will just stay home and that could swing the election to a Trump win.
We’ve already covered the sampling skew in some of the other polls in previous conversations. I guess we’ll find out who’s right about that soon enough.
Anecdotally, where I live in upstate NY, starting at my farm and continuing down the road out of town, there are Trump signs one after another. In the town itself (a college town) almost exclusively Clinton signs. They’ve been popping up in the past few days like mushrooms after a rain.
Also, you go to the hardware store, the feed store, the beer section of the grocery store, the gun store for ammo, the tractor dealer, talk to construction guys, cops and veterans and you say “hello” to someone you know or someone you’ve seen around, but don’t know that well, and inevitably the conversation becomes centered on politics and, after a little dance to make sure it’s ok, it comes around to how we need Trump and what a god awful mess this country will be if Clinton wins. In town, the college kids think Trump is a Nazi, but they hate Clinton too (they were Bernie supporters). I think they will go third party or stay home. The college profs are all going for Clinton, though some preferred Bernie.
Sir
I live in Democratville. My state reliably votes Democrat. I too observe the same lack of bumper stickers and yard signs for the Borg Queen. However, I see plenty of signs for other candidates.
From an anecdotal perspective among my family and friends no one is voting for “Her”. Many are voting for Jill Stein. A few are voting Trump. None are enthused about continuing the status quo. All want some kind of change, whatever it may be.
I have no idea who Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia will elect. They will decide our next president. I just don’t think the polls are reliable. We know the massive collusion between the media and the Borg Queen’s campaign to first undermine and then stack the primary against Bernie. Now we see this unprecedented pile-on to wean women away from Trump. In my travels in the South-east and Mid-west I notice that many know we’re on the wrong track. They want change. But how the majority vote is something I don’t have a sense of. I hope folks see through the media IO and take a chance on Trump. At worst we’ll have more dysfunctionality. But on the other hand we could cut the Borg down a notch. Trump is beholden to no one at this point. The MSM, duopoly establishment and the big money have openly opposed him to the hilt. He owes them no favors.
Drove down to Lexington/Natural Bridge last weekend. Nothing but Trump-Pence along 81 and 11. Not a Clinton-Kaine to be seen anywhere, but, that’s the Valley
AJ: This is true of many legal immigrants, particularly, those who came over on special visas.
We are not offended by Trump wanting to secure the borders.
LA Times is not a poll, it’s a focus group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old-illinois-man-is-distorting-national-polling-averages.html?_r=0
Sir
The electoral college inherently favors a Democrat. Between the western coastal states and the North eastern states and states like Illinois the Democrat starts with 220+. Any Republican candidate has to run the table in the swing states to win. A tall order in the best of circumstances. In this election with the exception of actual voters everyone else has done everything possible to take out Trump. While the probability is in the Borg Queens favor I find it really amazing that Trump is so competitive. It says something. Not sure what the implications are. I am willing to bet however that if the Borg Queen comes across the finish line first she will not have much legitimacy among a large swathe of voters who have seen the naked use of power by the Borg to keep their gravy train going.
In my county, Charlotte, Trump signs are 20 to 1 over Clinton signs. I have seen one Clinton bumper sticker but many for Trump. A friend of mine who travels extensively says he sees nothing but Trump signs from Arizona to the mid-west to the south-east. Up till two weeks ago, I would watch the evening national news, not anymore – too much propaganda. I will watch the debate tomorrow night, can’t imagine it will be boring.
Very interesting about signs. I don’t know media, and I’m not a military guy, but I do know signs in campaigns. Very significant indicator in this case.
Signs do not just happen. There is a sign team, lots of motivated local people working. The sign crew is the muscle of a campaign. Lots of signs means lots of volunteer energy for all variety of ground activity.
Ideal sign density for rural roadside is one sign seen every 2-5 minutes of driving — just a little blip — signs can even be hidden in weeds, and driver gets into a “spot the sign” game. Urban environment has different conventions, but similar idea — engaging the driver in a sort of game, not just annoying with sheer volume. Signs on lawn count more than non-personal.
So if polling is otherwise tied, I’d say DT by 3-5 percent on E-day. That’s about the advantage a superb sign campaign can give in an otherwise even contest. Signs are not a decider, they are a reinforcer. But no reinforcements for HC is a disaster. Further, her volunteers get demoralized driving past those DT signs; many non-paids will reduce activity rather than accept the stress.
The sign crew muscle shows up again on voting day, in terms of getting supporters to the polls so they actually vote.
Colonel-
In west Los Angeles where I live ( consistently a very democratic area) this time around I haven’t seen any yard signs, or even bumper stickers on the cars, for any candidate. I remember during Obama’ first and even second candidacy there where a lot of signs in yards or cars. Although there are many yard signs in suport or against various CA. propositions hardly any for president.
Brunswick,
LMAO the same NY Times that has been shown working hand in glove with HRC and the DNC? Yeah I bet they’re pretty unbiased and not at all bothered.
10:1 Bernie:Clinton ratio here. Putting up a Trump sign would be asking for trouble. Most people here don’t want to encourage/deal with the vandals. They’ll show their support on election day.
swampy
This is in MA? pl
Calling the same base group over and over, isn’t a poll, it’s a focus group.
I’m surprised about the Bernie signs. Is this back from the primary or fresh new signs?
Swampy,
I have a sneaking suspicion that the ten signposters for Bernie are much more likely toe leave a Trump sign unmolested. It is that one signposter for Clinton who would molest the Trump signs. If you know any of the Bernie and Clinton signposters, I wonder whether it would be an interesting informal sort-of-study to ask each of them separately what they would do if other neighbors put up a Trump sign. If the Bernie-signposters all unanimously say that they would molest a Trump sign, and all the Clinton signposters all unanimously say that they would molest a Trump sign, then my hypothesis is entirely wrong. If nine-out-of-ten Bernie signposters say they would leave a Trump sign alone, and that tenth Bernie-signposter says he would bother the Trump sign, and all the Clinton signposters say they would bother the Trump sign, then the results could be understood in either one of two ways.
Bernie-dismissers would say that a Trump sign is just as likely to suffer from a Berner as from a Hillarrhoid. Bernie supporters would say that any one randomly-selected Bernie supporter would be 9 times less likey to bother a Trump sign than any random Clinton supporter would be likely to bother a Trump sign. And the 9 leave-the-sign-alone Bernie supporters would be upset about that nasty tenth Bernie supporter who would spoil it for the other nine.
Tyler,
It may be that the Media has screamed so long and loud about deadly violent Trump supporters that the Hillarrhoids are afraid to come to a Clinton rally for fear of attack by roaming gangs of armed and vicious Stormtrumpers. If that media-inculcated fear has been injected into the minds of millions of Hillary-voters, they may well be hiding in their houses waiting to emerge on voting day and then flee back into their homes.
We won’t know till the day-after-the-Election.
The Rasmussen polls probably aren’t too far off the mark with regards to what people who answer the phone think.
The problem is that “people who answer the phone” when Rasmussen calls does not equate with cross-section of voters. See this link.
I trust Sam Wang. He was the first to aggregate US Presidential polls. That was in 2004 — Wang’s polls-based calculation, exactly predicted the actual election outcome. In 2008, Wang founded the Princeton Election Consortium blog where he analyzes U.S. national election polling. In 2012 he correctly predicted the presidential vote outcome in 49 of 50 states and even the popular vote outcome (Obama 51.1% to Romney’s 48.9%). He also correctly called 10 out of 10 close Senate races and came within a few seats of the final House outcome.
He says that national polls have Trump’s support still where it’s been all year, around 40-42% of voters. Currently he has Clinton up +4.4%. That translates to a Clinton Nov. win probability of: random drift 95%, Bayesian 97%.
He hasn’t updated Senate race probabilities since the beginning of Sept. At that time, he had Democratic control of the Senate at +65%.
http://election.princeton.edu/
Las Vegas heavily favors her too. Something like -400 for HRC, +600 trump.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner
My anecdotal information from various sources points toward a easy win for Hillary in the electoral college.This is not what I want but feel strongly it will happen.
Phil Cattar
Yes, an electoral college win for the Boudicaa II followed by massive resistance of one kind or another. pl
Brunswick,
Whatever you claim, sweetness.
The Democrat Banana Republic of Eastern Massachusetts.
My (British) friend in an upscale subdivision in Kalamazoo (MI) reports multiple DT posters vs 0 HRC signs.
Two weeks ago I drove down to Miami from the Atlanta area and came back just as Hurricane Mathew hit. Due to boredom from interstate driving I counted maybe four H bumper stickers and 20 T bumper stickers in about 20 hours of driving. I saw Trump signs but no Clinton signs on property.
Dunno where all the Clinton support comes from.
Later, in Europe, overheard several US nationals apologizing to locals about the US election choices in airports.
Col. Lang
I concur with your assessment. If we thought Slick Willy’s term was full of drama, IMO, Crooked Hillary’s first term will feel like a civil war.
She’s going to have to preside over a recession which is long overdue and a likely stock market downturn. That will add fuel to the fire. And then if she starts her war on the Deplorables with her nanny state overreach that will be even more tinder.
Brunswick, if sampling is non-biased then, essentially, it is also a focus group in a de facto kinda way. Your hair splitting is pointless.
Here in the middle ring suburbs of Minneapolis there are very few signs or bumper stickers for either legacy party candidate. I drove 100 miles upstate last week to meet my sister for lunch and saw maybe 8-10 Trump signs, but none for Hilary. Most signs are for state legislature races.
Walker, You’re preaching to the choir here. I am fully aware of poll sampling problems, even when the pollsters are trying their best to be unbiased.
Several of the older well established polling firms declined to continue with presidential election polling b/c of the inherent difficulty re; arriving at a fair sample.
LMAO.
EA,
Most gamblers are wrong and lose. That’s why casinos and race tracks are profitable businesses.
What most of these aggregations are is simply adding up the %s to each candidate and then dividing by the number of polls. That is exactly how NOT to do a meta-analysis. It’s junk food for gullible masses. Enjoy.
I’d like to confirm AJ’s observation. The Plymouth County towns are among the most conservative in Mass. and Trump signs are common here. Also Bernie signs are quite common. Very few HRC signs.
On the other hand, a recent visit to the White Mtns. shows Hassan signs way outnumber Ayotte (US Senate), and Clinton outnumbering Trump, which surprised me. But this is the eastern slope of the Whites and there is a bit more of a liberal vibe there than in other parts of New Hampshire.
I don’t think Hillary supporters are fearful and hiding in their homes, I think the majority are working, often 2 jobs, raising children, continuing their education, carrying for elderly parents. They do not have time to attend rallies, but they will find time to vote. Hillary Clinton will be our next president. Many of us don’t have to put signs in our yards.
The popular vote and the electoral college vote can vary widely, as in Gore handily won the popular vote in 2000, but it didn’t work out that way in the electoral college.
Trump has a very narrow path to victory in the electoral college. The numbers now are that Clinton is close to 270 “safe” EC votes and Trump is knocking along at a little below 200. That puts the results in a half dozen states in the drivers seat, like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and a couple more smaller ones. Trump essentially has to win them all. The overall polls are interesting, but the devil, as always, is in the details.
Expect that means the next three weeks will make the campaigns to date look like a polite discussion. It seems the game is negative campaigning to drive down turnout, and who can get more of their base to the polls in crucial states. That’s one place Trump’s contempt for the Repub establishment can bite him in the ass. The party has the local get out the vote machinery, he does not. Guess we’ll find out if twitter can replace GOTV boots on the ground.
We could well have a very lopsided electoral college outcome, and a very unhappy country with an awful lot of people who feel they have been screwed again. I don’t like Trump (or Hillary) worth a damn, but if he loses big and we get a “mandate” for four more years of same and worse, 2020 may be villagers with torches and pitchforks and a candidate who makes Trump look like a choirboy.
Fred,
We do have some Bernie signs up though, here and there. Maybe just some Bitter Berners un-reconciled to the Inevitability of Her Majestic Borgness.
Tigermoth,
This would be terribly cynical of them if it is true. And I wonder if it has done them any good.
Because . . . I and perhaps many other Bitter Berners would certainly have voted Clinton if the Republicans had nominated one of their Brand Name nominee-wannabes. When the Republicans nominated Trump, they set me and perhaps some other Bitter Berners free to vote Not-Clinton, one way or another. And if Trump’s the way the cookie crumbles, so be it.
You’re right, that’s why I said “A quick drive through the towns along I81 shows many Trump signs”
The old roads and the valley are interesting aren’t they? Also up into Pennsylvania on 15 from Frederick and Thurmont, MD to Gettysburg and Harrisburg are close to my heart.
Jack,
What I wonder is this: how many people in the inherently Democratic electoral states would have to vote for Stein or vote for Some Other One Else, or Write Bernie In, or leave the President Line blank . . . to subtract enough votes FROM Clinton to where her vote totals in each of these states go just unstealably enough below Trump’s numbers in those same states
that Trump has to be admitted to have won those “inherently Democratic states”.
It is Gut-Check Decision-Time for all Bitter Berners, Greenie Weenies and other assorted Had-Enoughers. Whom do you hate more? Whom do you TRUUUU-ly FEEEEAR?
Silver acknowledged the added difficulties of forecasting primary outcomes. His model is much tighter for the general.
I’m a single issue voter-
War or peace.
The dude from NY will not get us into a war with Mother Russia….’nuff said.
That sounds a lot like “operation gemstone” in Nixon’s 1972 re-election effort. The result was McGovern.
No way of telling. Political polling used to be fairly accurate some years ago. Now the potential polling pool is much too jaded by political polsters. They have seen too many slanted questions and too many phony results. Most people ignore them the closer it gets to the election. For the last month I have been getting five to ten polls a week by phone, by email and by snail-mail. I ignore them all. I would guess only extremely enthusiastic partisans respond.
Rasmussen says 1% – 538 says 7% – the high roller at my local coffee says the oddsmakers in Vegas are at 5 t0 1 against Trump.
As for a civil war? There will probably be isolated violence on election day sadly. And possibly after no matter who wins the election. But state and local authorities will take care of it. I don;t see a civil war. Neither Trump nor Clinton would be a Jefferson Davis. Trump’s pal General Flynn would not make a pimple on the arse of Lee or Jackson. Same for Hillary’s Generals Sennewald and Maddox, or even compared to Grant and Sherman.
My anecdotal two cents: I live in Los Angeles and drive a combined 40 miles per day on America’s two busiest (i.e. worst) freeways, the US101 and I-405. I also play the count-the-sticker game when stuck in traffic. I regularly see more Bernie stickers in a single day than I’ve seen HRC stickers in 6 months (5 total, maybe?). Granted I think I’ve seen maybe one or two Trump stickers in that time, but that’s to be expected here. No yard signs at all, for any candidate. Once you get into the more agricultural territory north of the San Fernando Valley, over the mountains into the San Joaquin Valley, you start to see a bit more Trump, also in the towns at the feet of the Sierras. No Hillary whatsoever, anywhere up there. I’m not sure what the scene is like up north of Fresno and Modesto. I don’t venture up that way much at all.
Of course, Los Angeles is about as apolitical a city as you’ll find, and people here are loathe to discuss politics, for lack of substantive knowledge as much as anything. It’s a given that California will go to HRC, but I think the profound lack of enthusiasm in this tried and true blue landscape is also telling. It’s also a place where liberal social shaming is hard and heavy, so if you are not bought into the liberal mainstream thought paradigm, you generally keep your political opinions to yourself. As an aside, I’ve written here before that my family and friends in Ohio are very torn on principle, and many are leaning towards the vote to blow it all up (a Trump vote). These are educated lawyers, librarians, teachers, etc. (i.e. not the archetypal “deplorable”). The blue collar folks back there have known for the past 30 years that they’re screwed, and they’re pretty much done taking it from the establishment.
Giant Meteor Strike is still polling well,
https://www.uml.edu/docs/TOPLINE-Millennials_tcm18-263895.pdf
Are they silencing Wikileaks? What they do is create attention for Wikileaks. If you want to silence it you would use other methods.
IM all in……………..I’m getting psyched up to oppose 90% of her agenda…………………..
This “Pied Piper” candidate thing is nothing new. The GOP supported Al Sharpton and GOP operative Roger Stone ran his campaign.
I think we can expect to see these false flag candidates multiply, along with even more unsavory and as yet unknown tactics.
That is, if we’re still holding elections after the crowning of the Annointed One (whichever one it may be).
Here’s a Sam Wong essay on Trump Voters distribution – the reason you can drive 3000 miles and see lots of Trump signs is that’s where his supporters live. But votes aren’t counted by square miles but by people, and 82% of the population lives in about 10% of the territory.
Nope, polls are different from focus groups.
DC
That’ll have to be an awful lot of voters. The Democrats usually run double digits ahead of the GOP candidate in states like California. But politics like stock prices I believe are mean reverting. Even California will in time swing away from the big government theology that is slowly wrecking the state.
Nancy
Hillary will in all probability win the electoral college. However, what the lack of signs show is low enthusiasm. Trump supporters are enthusiastic that’s why they take the time from their 2 jobs to go to a rally or order signs to place on their front yard.
Where this is going to matter IMO is legitimacy. There will be large sections of the country that will feel alienated to Hillary presidency. And someone will tap into that resentment. The vitriol of the 90s will pale in comparison I believe.
That’s why the urban rural divide is growing.
So just what is your point here? Lets leave aside for the moment who will win the election, or, I give you that she’ll win, and win big, for purposes of you thesis here. Are you implying that the “majority” of Trump supporters are: not “working”? Don’t have “two jobs”? Don’t “raise children”? Are not “continuing their education”? Are not “carrying [sic] for elderly parents”? You smugness, arrogance, sweeping self righteousness are, alone, enough to MAKE one vote for Trump. You really ought to go right out and buy Thomas Frank’s book, Listen Liberal. You–come across, anyway, in your comment as a live caricature right out of the book. Most people work. Most people, raise, or have raised, children, most people do their best to educate themselves, and most people care for their elderly parents. Stop demonizing people.
Amozon, oh, sorry, the Washington Post, calls Rasmussen that? Must have been a slow day, they could not find a neocon or R2Per war to support. That someone else’s kid will fight.
ALCON,
What is either/any candidate going to do about this:
http://michael-hudson.com/2016/10/democracys-debt-ladder/ ?
Mark
Eric,
He’s citing the “because I said so” precedent. Whatever to do?
Not amazed the same people defending garbage national polls are defending garbage state polls. Arizona tied? Hillary behind by 4 in Texas? Sure, sure. And intelligence isn’t genetic and everyone is exactly the same.
We’ll see come November, won’t we Eric Newhill?
The best pollster in my opinion is Dr. Sam Wang of Princeton who is a physiologist and does polling as a hobby. His accuracy in the last three elections has been better than that 528 guy. Here is his latest:
Princeton Election Consortium
A first draft of electoral history. Since 2004
As of October 19, 8:05AM EDT:Snapshot (174 state polls): Clinton 335, Trump 203 EV Meta-margin: Clinton +4.8%RSS
Clinton Nov. win probability: random drift 96%, Bayesian 98%
Senate snapshot (48 polls): Dem+Ind: 50, GOP: 50, Meta-margin: D +0.2%, Nov. control probability: Dem. 62%
If I were going to bet on the electoral vote count, I would take his figures.
Neither is correct. It’s close, within the margin of error.
I think that when all the dust has settled Hillary Clinton will have been elected but she may not have received a majority of the popular vote. If the turnout is low, particularly in the big cities, anything could happen.
The Princeton Election Consortium, which has a sound reputation, today has a ‘snapshot’ of Clinton with 335 Electoral College votes. PEC gives her 96% chance of winning (98% with a Bayesian predictor). See the link for the state-by-state overview and details.
http://election.princeton.edu/electoral-college-map/
Thanks for this. Mirrors what happened in the UK when the labour party allowed Jeremy Corbin to stand.
What odds are the Irish bookies giving? They probably have as much or more $ at stake than Las Vegas does.
This discussion brings to my mind some interesting parallels between the current US elections and the last elections held in India.
The congress party won successive mandates because Muslims voted for them as a bloc and the majority Hindu vote was fractured. For several reasons (I shall not go into) the Muslim vote was fractured this time round while, due to a strong campaign, the Hindu vote coalesced around the opposition BJP, which won with a landslide.
Listening to you it seems to me the bedrock of the democrats which is the African-American vote is not very enthused and won’t turn up to vote, unlike the past two elections. The white vote while still fractured seems to be for Trump. The Latino vote will decide this election, it seems to me.
Speaking of enthusiasm, Matt Karp has a good article at Jacobin discussing Sanders’ continuing unusually high positive ratings.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/bernie-sanders-polling-favorability-trump-hillary-clinton/
If nothing else, the dominant Wall Street wing of the Dems can congratulate themselves at having derailed a threat to Social Security privatization. Good article from today by Sirota on how the Blackstone zombie proposal lives on.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-wall-street-financial-industry-may-control-retirement-savings
Would not it be “interesting” if Trump wins the vote by a significant margin, say 3% to 5% and yet the electoral college still goes overwhelmingly to Clinton?
Polls are not the “final” results, but “projections” based on limited opinion data and a lot of assumptions. While they should not be completely dismissed, they should be taken with appropriate amounts of salts.
I’d been working with some polling data collected from different sources over last few months. Even with the identical data, slight variations in methodologies and assumptions, reflecting possible scenarios of what might unfold come November, yield a fairly wide variation in possible results (this is different from statistical margin of error, which is the product of the possible variations in how the sample stacks up to the “real life” populations.) All these assumptions and methodological tweaks were “reasonable” given how things might pan out–and they yield average leads for HRC ranging from 8% to 2%, plus margins of error, from the identical data. State by state, projected EV totals for Clinton range from 250 to 360 (yes, there is not unreasonable probability that Trump loses the popular vote but wins EC, even if it’s probably not very likely that Trump would carry popular majority/plurality). The problem is that the uncertainty is much greater than just the statistical one, and accounting for them properly means that pollsters ought to be a lot more “honest” about how they project the future to look like.
Sam Wang does not do his own “models.” He just aggregates all the polls and does the calculations. Because the aggregation process combines all the information from different polls, his setup will be better than any single poll out there, but, at the same time, reflects all the issues that the individual polls have. When there is a pretty good consensus on what is going on in the election, in terms of the moving parts, I would definitely trust and recommend the kind of approach Wang is taking, but I’m a little bit weary about this election. There are a few big trends that are unlike elections of the (recent) past:
1) The working class white turnout has been in fairly steep decline pretty throughout 1990s and 2000s. There will most likely be a pretty sizable rebound, but how big? The size of the white working class as a proportion of the population is much smaller than, say, in 1992, so anything short of truly extraordinary jump will not be decisive.
2) The minority turnout, especially among the young, working class, males will take a big dive. Obama in 2008 and 2012 was able to push up young minority turnout far beyond what had been customary in 1990s and early 2000s. I don’t see the same turnout for HRC, who is deeply mistrusted by this particular demographic. IF they vote, they will be lopsidedly Democratic–much has been made of how HRC enjoys 90+% support from, say, blacks–but this has been true for some time for pretty much any generic Democrat vs a generic Repbulican. The real uncertainty lies in WHETHER they will vote. This is why Democrats are especially busy campaigning painting Trump as a particularly extreme racist–but I don’t know if this is working as well as they are hoping.
3) What will the “respectable” Republicans do? The affluent and college-educated Republicans, especially the women, the backbone of the Romney electorate (and, really, the Republican Party for past century plus) have been deeply wary and weary of both Trump himself and his supporters since the beginning of the primary process. Their support has been coming and going last few months–every “surge” by Trump in the polls was accompanied by the regular Republicans lining up behind Trump, and every “ebb” was the result of the regular Republicans abandoning Trump in significant numbers. Unlike the first two groups, these people have tended to vote reliably. Will they still show up at the polls this time, in their usual numbers? If they do, will they still vote Trump?
All three throw their own monkey wrenches into the usual “assumptions” that go into how the projections that the polls are built on, and NONE of the pollsters openly talks about how they are dealing with these assumptions in a frank and open fashion (to be fair, I don’t know how many people want to talk about these and detail. None of these is really secret–but they tend to be in technical jargon in fine prints that are kinda hidden away.) The uncertainties they introduce are only semi-(un)knowable unknowns which statistics can’t deal with (which are limited only to knowable unknowns–to borrow Rumsfeldian lingo.) The bottom line is that uncertainties are far larger than just the margins of error. We need real “intel,” based on a human understanding, to deal with these kinds of uncertainties.
Col: It’s strange. I live in an overwhelming Republican precinct in Texas and there is only one Trump sign in my neighborhood. My precinct votes well over 90% Republican.
There are zero Hillary signs.
Tyler might be right. This is a stealth election.
I wonder if anyone here has a fix on the “cellphone only” and “only answer the land-line with an answering machine” polling implications?
Not sure what the percentages are, but these seem to be an increasing fraction of potential voters??
AK,
If its a given that California will go for Hillary, then those who preferred Sanders should feel no fear in voting Not-Clinton one way or another. They can all vote for Stein, or they can all vote for Someone Else, or they can leave the President line blank. That way they could at least make their presence and numbers undeniably known. And if it is a given that California will go for Clinton in any case, then none of the Bitter Berners or anyone else for Not Clinton need worry about California going for Trump just because they didn’t support Clinton.
Right on cue the highly regarded IDB/TIPP comes out with Trump a point ahead.
http://www.investors.com/politics/trump-leads-clinton-by-one-point-going-into-debate-in-ibdtipp-tracking-poll/
Of course it is a rather obvious media propaganda meme to say the race is over, it isn’t. Strong performance by Trump tonight and it might be though.
Jack,
The question remains . . . how many of those Democratic voters are Not Clinton voters? Both in California and elsewhere? I hear there are quite a few Bitter Berners in California. What if every last one of them overcame their fear of a President Trump and all voted Not Clinton in one way or another?
(Bitter Berners accept Big Government if it is a Big PEOPLES’ Government.
What we DON’T like is Clinton’s Big Wall Street Government.)
KHC
I agree with you that there is great uncertainty with the poll data for all the reasons you note. Who turns out will make all the difference. A key question is what traditional GOP women do? Will they vote Trump, Hillary or no one on the presidential selection? Hillary’s campaign with the MSM have really in a way bet the farm on the women vote. Another is what do young voters do? We can be certain that there will be fewer of them voting relative to 2008 and possibly even 2012. In my extended friends and family sample none are voting for the duopoly. How do independents break? Romney git a decent percentage. Will Trump do better or worse? We can also be certain that black turnout will be less than 2008 and 2012. And the big question how many white working class men will vote? We could have a Brexit like scenario where both GOP leaners and traditional Democrat union types turn out in bigger than anticipated numbers for Trump.
Having said all this there is no doubt that any Democrat candidate has a substantial advantage in the electoral college. We’ll have to see if the marginal voter prefers change or the status quo.
Here is what one Irish bookie thinks:
Irish bookmaker is so confident that Hillary Clinton will win this election that they have already started to pay out over a million dollars to those who bet she would.
Courtesy of CBC News:
One of the world’s biggest bookies is so sure that Hillary Clinton will win next month’s U.S. presidential contest that it has already started paying bettors.
Paddy Power said Tuesday it will begin to pay out more than $1 million US to people with bets on its books in favour of Clinton, whose odds of winning have risen so high that a bettor would have to put up $11 just to win $2. In decimal terms, that implies the wife of former president Bill Clinton has better than an 84 per cent chance of victory.
That’s in keeping with some recent polls, with Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com currently predicting an 85 per cent chance of victory for the Democrats, based on a compendium of different polls.
“With national polls showing a healthy lead for the Democratic candidate and Donald Trump’s campaign running into scandal after scandal, Paddy Power believes it’s a done deal and that Hillary is a nailed-on certainty to occupy the Oval Office,” Paddy Power, based in Ireland, said about the Republican nominee.
Gee, and that is even before tonight’s debate where Hillary will likely mop the floor with Trump again and increase her lead by several more percentage points.
Though now that HuffPo puts her chances of winning at over 94% it is hard to see how her lead can increase much more.
S Wood –
Amazing! I went to his site after reading your comment.
http://blog.paddypower.com/politics/2016/10/18/paddy-power-pay-out-hillary-clinton/
Publicity stunt maybe. But with only 2/11 odds ($2 payout for an $11 bet???), I would guess there were not that many takers. Most of the high rollers are probably betting on the long odds for Trump.
What is even more amazing to me is Paddy’s other betting options on the US elections. You can bet on winning margins, both for electoral or popular vote; voter turnout; and first topic discussed at debate. You can even bet on whether Trump or Clinton will resign as nominee prior to the election, or you can bet on a future impeachment for either candidate if he or she wins.
Well said, thank you.
Nancy K –
Please forgive the impolite responses to your “not-hiding-in-their-homes/ comment.
Do not buy the book recommended for you above. A better read by Thomas Frank is: “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation”.
https://www.amazon.com/Wrecking-Crew-Conservatives-Government-Themselves/dp/0805090908/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476915701&sr=1-2&keywords=the+wrecking+crew
Nancy,
You mean after 8 years of Obama’s policies they have to work two jobs?
Matthew,
Gonna screenshot this and save it as my wallpaper. BRB
Thirdeye,
LOL no. Silver couldn’t shoehorn reality into the paradigm he wanted, so he rambled on in circles so he could handwave away the fact he’s another monkey dancing for the grinder.
Try again.
Nancy K,
I bet you believe that the reason blacks do worst in school is because they’re hungry, too.
EA,
“Yeah let’s listen to gamblers but you better IGNORE how the gamblers are betting just like the Brexit vote.”
I’m golf clapping over here, I really am. You usually only see this level of self delusion when the Red Guards have a bayonet to your back. The fact that you are voluntarily doing this is amazing to witness.
MA,
If you CRT trolls are going to set each other up for alley oops, you should be less obvious.
Voter registrations, tho, in Fla Hispanic areas are reported high and going heavy Dem, for whatever that means.
http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/08/increase-in-minority-voters-poses-problem-for-trump-in-florida-104717
I read Wong’s essay and it makes great sense and has a lot of humor.
dc,
True. I think though that the energy level is down, and not just now it’s been declining for 8 year. I used to be pretty hard core Democrat even if I wasn’t as liberal as they are here. Let’s just say I understand now what Reagan meant when he said the party left him. I’m not the only one that has been driven away.
khc, well said. That’s it.
From The Hill, Oct. 19th: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/301834-poll-trump-up-1-on-clinton-nationally
All
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/white_house_watch_oct20
Rasmussen now says he is three points ahead nationally. pl
I think, to use the stats lingo, the tails are pretty fat with this election. In 2012, I thought the statistical prediction from polls was easy (at least from my perspective): it was going to be close, but not a lot of chance of many votes going off the script so to speak, so Obama was going to win with near certainty with a fairly small margin. Regardless of you sliced and diced the numbers, analyzing the polls pretty much said the same thing–Obama was going to win by 2-4% margin. In 2016, the story is the opposite: HRC will “probably” win by a decent margin (that is, that seems the most likely outcome), but probabilities of strange and odd outcomes are pretty big: Trump could squeak out an electoral college win with a not insignificant probability, or he could get creamed in a 400+-130-5 EC blowout with a decent chance.
I haven’t a clue what you are talking about.
Sorry if you feel demonized, that was not my intention. I was explaining the possible reasons that Hillary supporters do not attend rallies. I support her, in fact early voted today, but I have not attended any rallies nor do I have signs in front of my house. You feel I am being smug and arrogant and self righteous, well that is definitely your right. My point was and continues to be large rallies and lots of signs do not necessarily indicate the outcome of an election. I believe Hillary Clinton will be the next president.
Many people were working 2 jobs before Obama became president.
Rasmussen predicted Romney would win in 2012, so it appears they can be wrong too.
Nancy K
I only mention Rasmussen for balance with the logrolling going on in the media. pl
Nancy,
That you live in liberal fairy tale land.
Walker,
I too trust Jeff Bezos’ personal blog.
I probably do, but I’m quite happy here.