This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
Since the last update there have been polls added in Wisconsin, New York, and Missouri. Missouri makes a difference in our models for Clinton vs Trump.
Missouri has been very lightly polled. This is only the second poll that specifically asks about Clinton vs Trump, so my five poll average is still filled out with the election results from 2004 to 2012. Without those old elections, the average would move even further in Clinton’s direction. The newest poll actually shows Clinton ahead, but it is just one poll. Never trust one poll. We look at averages. As it is, the average now stands at Trump +4.7%.
This now puts Missouri back in the “close enough it could go either way” category.
This improves Clinton’s best case against Trump:
Clinton’s best case if she wins all the states she is ahead in, plus the two where she is close (Colorado and now Missouri) is to win 357 to 181, an 176 electoral vote margin.
Looking at the chart above, since the new year there have been eight changes (5 to the expected case, 2 to Trump’s best case, and 1 to Clinton’s best case). Seven of those changes have favored Clinton. Only one has been a move toward Trump.
Trump’s situation has deteriorated significantly in the last three months. The question is of course if he is near a bottom and about to rebound, or if he has only started his fall and soon the real discussion will not be who would win, but rather how big a win Clinton would have.
Of course, all of that is only relevant if he ends up as the nominee. The delegate race is still underway and Trump has a very narrow path to follow to get to the convention with a majority of delegates. If he falls short, we get a contested convention, and it looking less likely by the day that Trump walks out of that scenario with the nomination. (See nice 538 writeup on this here.)
220.0 days left until polls start to close on election night 2016. There will be lots of ups and downs between now and then. Stay tuned!
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
There have been polls in Michigan, Wisconsin and California since the last post.
There is no change for the front runners. The Clinton vs Trump summary remains the same, with anything from Clinton by 156 to Trump by 30 in the realm of the possible, with Clinton by 138 the “expected” result and the tipping point remaining at Clinton by 3.9%.
But the Wisconsin polls made a difference for Clinton vs Cruz:
Four of the five polls used in the average now show a very tight Clinton vs Cruz race in Wisconsin. The average now has Clinton ahead by only 2.7%, and clearly it is only that high due to the oldest poll included in the average. So Wisconsin is added to the list of states that Cruz might win in his “best case” where he wins all the states he is ahead in, plus all the ones where he trails by less than 5%.
With Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes, Cruz’s best case increases from a 10 electoral vote win to a 30 electoral vote win, now matching Trump’s best case against Clinton. In fact, Cruz’s best and worst cases now match Trump exactly. Cruz does a bit better in the expected case because he leads in Iowa and North Carolina, while Trump does not.
Cruz has also been on a strengthening trend while Trump has been getting weaker. We will see if that continues.
222.4 days until polls start to close on Election 2016.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
New general election polls in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania since the last update but the one that makes a difference is Pennsylvania:
After a few months in “Weak Clinton” territory, the polling average in Pennsylvania returns to “Strong Clinton” with Clinton now leading Trump by 5.2%. That is just barely out of the “close” category, but you have to draw the line somewhere. For the categorization on ElectionGraphs.com, only states where the margin is under 5% are considered states that could go either way.
So, Trump’s “best case” where he wins all the close states gets weaker:
And since Pennsylvania was the tipping point in Clinton vs Trump, the tipping point moves toward Clinton as well:
With this change added, the impression of Trump peaking against Clinton in January and being on a decline ever since is reinforced. With a couple of exceptions, almost every change since then has been in Clinton’s favor.
It is almost as if the things that have propelled Trump to the top of the GOP race may simultaneously be turning off general election voters. Go figure. Who would have guessed?
The new overall summary of the Clinton vs Trump race is below:
If Trump wins all the close states, he still wins. This is still a race, and Democrats should not get complacent.
But things have not been moving in Trump’s direction for the general while he has been fighting for the GOP nomination… which is still by no means locked up. If Trump wants to win in November and not just in July at the Republican convention, at some point he needs to do the pivot to the general election. Right now it looks like the earliest that can really happen is June, and quite possibly not until July… assuming the nomination doesn’t go to someone else at a contested convention.
The longer it takes for Trump to get to the point where he can make a big change in direction to try to appeal to general election voters, the weaker he is likely to be in November.
229.3 days until polls start closing on election day.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Since the last electoral college update there have been new polls in New York, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina. But the only notable change is in North Carolina:
With the latest polls, North Carolina moves from just barely Trump, to just barely Clinton. Either way, it is very close… and it has been bouncing back and forth since last fall. North Carolina is not necessarily showing any sort of trend here. Bottom line it is just a close state in this race.
But for the moment, this puts North Carolina back in Clinton’s column if everybody just wins all the states they are ahead in. So looking at the national picture:
The Clinton vs Trump “Expected Case” has been moving toward Clinton since January. With this update, Trump’s expected case is worse than it has been since Clinton vs Trump polling began.
Now, all the states in the “bubble” are by definition close. They could flip back. But this is starting to look like it might be a real trend and not just noise.
Right now, the expected case sits at Clinton 338, Trump 200… a 138 electoral vote margin for Clinton. For comparison, the Obama-Romney margin was 126 electoral votes.
There are eight states that are “close” right now. But seven of these eight are now leaning Clinton. And the one remaining state (Colorado) has only ONE actual Clinton vs Trump poll (from back in November), the average is still based mostly on how the state has gone in previous election years. It is certainly starting to look like most of the “traditional” battleground states are turning blue in this matchup. Again though, these states are close, and they might easily bounce back to Trump.
The range of reasonable possibilities is large here. Allowing all eight states to swing to one side or the other you get a range from Clinton winning by 156 to Trump winning by 70. Anything is still possible here.
But if Clinton vs Trump continues to look like the most likely combination, then we will probably also start getting more polling in the “Strong Trump” group of states. These have been very lightly polled and are still significantly based on previous election results, and the polls we do have tend to be older at this point. Given the trends in other states, perhaps some of these aren’t actually as “Strong Trump” as they initially seem. Or maybe they are. We shall see.
230.8 days until polls start to close. Things will be moving back and forth the whole time. Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Update 2016-03-23 18:18 to Fix Article title to Electoral College]
Yeah, yeah, primaries. Another general election poll, this time in Pennsylvania. They polled a bunch of different candidate combinations, but the one with a significant change was Clinton vs Trump:
No category change. Pennsylvania stays “Weak Clinton”. But Pennsylvania was the tipping point state in Clinton vs Trump, so when Pennsylvania moves, so does the tipping point:
The tipping point goes from Clinton by 3.1% in Pennsylvania, to Clinton by 3.6% in Pennsylvania… which happens to be the same as it was just a few days earlier. So things just bouncing around a little bit. The trend since January on the tipping point seems to be away from Trump and toward Clinton… but there is lots of time yet.
238.0 days until the polls start closing on election day.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Since the last Electoral College Update there have been general election polls in Florida, Ohio and Illinois. There was no notable change to the front-running Clinton vs Trump pair, but there was significant movement in Clinton vs Cruz.
After more than a year on an upward trend, Cruz finally closes to within 5% of Clinton in Florida. Clinton now leads by only 3.8%. This makes Florida a “Weak Clinton” state and makes it a possible pickup for Cruz. Add this to Ohio from a few days ago and you have a breakthrough moment for Cruz:
For the first time, Cruz’s best case is actually to win. If Cruz won every state he leads, plus Nevada, Ohio, and Florida where he is close… then he wins by 10 electoral votes.
Without those three close states, he still loses by 96 electoral votes. But those three states ARE close, and for the very first time the possibility of Cruz pulling ahead and winning seems plausible.
The Florida move, plus yet another bump in Cruz’s direction in Ohio, also moved the tipping point:
Before the latest batch of updates, the tipping point had been New Hampshire, where Clinton is ahead by 6.4%. Now it is Florida, where Clinton is ahead by only 3.8%.
Florida and Ohio make a big difference, and Cruz is now making them both close.
Cruz had been the one Republican candidate that looked sure to lose in the general. But things change during a campaign, and he now has a shot. If he were to win the Republican nomination of course. Looking at the delegate race that still looks unlikely. But if we end up at a contested convention, anything could happen…
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Since my last Electoral College blog post there have been new polls in New York, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. There were notable changes for two candidate pairs. But for both of them, the news was mixed. Lets take a look:
Clinton vs Trump
With some strong polls from last fall rolling off the average, Florida flips from “Weak Trump” to “Weak Clinton” with the state now sitting at a 1.8% Clinton lead. This is still a very “close could go either way” result, but it puts Florida on Clinton’s side of the fence so she gets Florida’s 29 electoral votes in her “Expected” case:
Florida is a big state and makes a big difference. The expected result is now a 108 electoral vote win by Clinton. But it is important to remember that given all the close states that could easily move, anything from Clinton by 156 to Trump by 70 is very easy to imagine given the current polling.
But there was movement for Trump in the other direction too. He improved in Pennsylvania, and while it didn’t change the status of Pennsylvania (Weak Clinton) it did move Trump’s tipping point:
After a very brief dip lower, Trump’s tipping point pops back up to being behind Clinton by only 3.1%. Remember, the tipping point essentially represents how far ahead or behind a candidate is nationally, but adjusted for the effects of the electoral college.
So Trump’s “expected” result gets a little bit worse, but the amount he has to move polls to flip that result to a win gets a little smaller.
Clinton vs Cruz
While Trump was weakening in Florida, Cruz’s poll average was improving in Ohio. He is now behind Clinton by only 4.0%. She still leads, but this is close enough for me to consider Ohio a swing state and a possible pick up for Cruz, which improves his “best case”…
Now if Cruz wins all the states he is ahead in, plus flips Nevada and Ohio where he is close… he loses by only 48 electoral votes.
But still, it is an improvement. And Cruz has been on an improving trend for about a year now. If it continues, he might eventually be competitive.
On this metric anyway. As with Trump above, his tipping point also moves, but in the opposite direction:
Cruz’s poll average in Florida dropped a bit. The category didn’t change (Strong Clinton) but the movement did cause Cruz’s tipping point to go from 6.0% behind Clinton to being 6.4% behind Clinton.
Either way, Cruz continues to be far behind Clinton when you look at things based on state level polls. As I have discussed here before, looking at national polls makes this matchup look much closer. It is unclear at this point if this is exposing an actual divergence between the popular vote and electoral college due to the regional distribution of candidate support, or if it is simply that there haven’t been enough state level polls of this matchup to catch up with recent changes to support levels. If Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, this would eventually become clear.
Of course, looking at the delegate race that doesn’t look too likely right now, so we may never know.
241.8 days until polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
While we still have a live possibility of a contested convention, Donald Trump is still the Republican frontrunner and with the latest polls in Michigan, Trump weakens further against Clinton:
Those polls look like the long summer of Trump may be over, at least in Michigan. Trump was never leading in Michigan, but for awhile it seemed like he might make it close. The newest poll may be an outlier, no way to tell without more polling. But for now, Michigan seems like it is reverting to being a “Strong Clinton” state.
This takes Michigan out of the list of states that could easily go either way in a Clinton vs Trump general election and lower’s Trump’s best case:
Trump’s best case drops from winning by 102 electoral votes to only winning by 70. The “expected” case remains Clinton winning by 50 electoral votes.
Looking at the spectrum of states, the “tipping point” has also changed. It used to be Michigan where before the latest poll Clinton had led by 3.6%. It is now Nevada where Clinton leads by 3.9%. This is the worst the tipping point has been for Trump since the beginning of Clinton vs Trump polling:
This trend is not one Trump should be happy about, but make no mistake… it is still a close race. A 3.9% lead can disappear in an instant. Just three states (Iowa, Ohio and Nevada) have to flip to make Trump the winner.
247.2 days until polls start to close. Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Yeah yeah, Super Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, all the other states coming right afterwards. But we have new general election polls!
Since my last update there have been new polls in Michigan, New Hampshire and Kansas. From all of this, two major candidate pairs had changes to their summary status on my site. And this time, that includes the frontrunners:
Clinton vs Trump
The categorization of Michigan did not change. “Weak Clinton” before, “Weak Clinton” now. But Michigan was the tipping point in Clinton vs Trump, so when Michigan moves, so does the tipping point:
The tipping point moves from a 3.0% Clinton lead in Michigan to a 3.6% Clinton lead in Michigan. Either way, 3.6% is still a narrow lead. Only 1.3% of people changing their minds, or undecideds flipping the right way, would put Trump in the lead. The question is if we are now in a trend away from Trump in this metric, or if we are just bouncing around in a range as new polls jitter the averages. Too soon to tell. But once the primary races are both settled to the point where it is hard to deny the winners are the winners, we will start seeing an acceleration of general election polling, and we should start to see if there are really any trends here.
Clinton vs Rubio
With the latest Michigan poll, Rubio leads in the poll average, which now shows a 0.9% Rubio lead. This moves Michigan from “Weak Clinton” to “Weak Rubio”. It is a close state that could easily go for either candidate, but with this change we move Michigan’s 16 electoral votes into Rubio’s column for the “expected” case where each candidate wins every state they are ahead in.
The move is extra significant this time because it actually puts Rubio over the top to win the whole shebang:
With this, the range of possible outcomes that seem reasonably possible is still everything from Clinton winning by 126 to Rubio winning by 156, but the expected result is now a Rubio win by 20 electoral votes.
This is also reflected in the tipping point:
The tipping point moves from Florida, where Clinton led by 0.8%, to Michigan where Rubio is now ahead by 0.9%.
Clinton vs Rubio remains a very close race. But Rubio now has a small advantage.
Others
Clinton vs Kasich is neither a front-running pair, or in the top five best polled combinations, so I won’t consider it fully here other than to note that the latest New Hampshire poll moved Kasich into the lead, changing his expected case from losing to Clinton by 46 electoral votes, to losing to Clinton by 38 electoral votes.
252.2 days until polls start to close on Election 2016.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Yes, all the attention is on South Carolina and Super Tuesday, but time for a quick electoral college update from recent poll updates. In the last batch of polls were new matchup results in Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin and West Virginia. These resulted in a few notable changes.
Clinton vs Trump
Well, actually, once again there was no significant update in the Clinton vs Trump race, but in this transitional phase where we are still getting polling for folks other than the frontrunners, I’ll mention the frontrunner status when there is a post highlighting changes with other candidate pairs. Trump’s lead in the average in Georgia actually dropped from 10.1% to 9.5% changing Georgia from “Solid Trump” to “Strong Trump” in my categorization, but this really doesn’t make any difference. Georgia isn’t in play at the moment. The situation remains that anything from Clinton winning by 156 to Trump winning by 102 is within the realm of the possible, and Clinton winning by 50 is the “expected” result if all the states go where their averages are currently pointing.
Clinton vs Cruz
Cruz improves a bit in Florida against Clinton, but not enough to change categories. Florida was however the tipping point state, so this also moves:
Cruz’s upward tipping point trend continues. Just a little bit further, and the Clinton vs Cruz race might actually look competitive!
(Reminder, the tipping point represents the margin in the state that would put the winner “over the top” if you ranked the states by their candidate preference. It is a good measure of how much the candidate who is behind would have to change national public opinion to flip the result and win.)
Clinton vs Rubio
This matchup had notable changes caused by the polls in two different states. First up, Florida:
The state didn’t change status. It was “Weak Clinton” before, and remains “Weak Clinton”. But as with Cruz, Florida was the tipping point state, and so the tipping point changes as well.
By this metric Rubio peaked in November and has been declining ever since. A Clinton vs Rubio matchup still looks incredibly close though. Clinton is only ahead here by 0.8%.
So this was good for Clinton. But there was also a change in Wisconsin that was good for Rubio:
All the recent polls have shown Wisconsin as a close state, whereas older polls had it Strong or Solid Clinton, and therefore the average has been moving up toward Rubio. With today’s update, it moves from “Strong Clinton” to “Weak Clinton”. This puts it in play for Rubio and improves his best case:
There are now ELEVEN close states in the Clinton vs Rubio contest, accounting for 141 electoral votes, which is quite a swing! Everything from Clinton by 126 to Rubio by 156 is now “in the bubble”. Clinton remains a slight favorite, winning by 12 electoral votes if all the states ended up following current poll results. But this is a tiny margin. Clinton vs Rubio remains essentially a tied race, with Florida’s 29 electoral votes at the tipping point.
And that is where things stand at the end of February.
254.9 days left until general election polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
|
|