States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states and DC.
Notable changes in: Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), and the tipping point
National Summary
It has been about two days since the last update. While there are mixed changes since then, on balance this is a good update for Trump, and the race looks closer than it did two days ago.
There will be one more update later today to capture any last minute polls released after the cutoff for this update. (There have already been a handful.)
Good for Trump
The expected case moves from Clinton winning by 108 EV to Clinton winning by only 8 EV.
The tipping point moves from Clinton by 1.8% in NC to Clinton by 1.6% in PA
Good for Clinton
Trump’s best case has deteriorated from a 112 EV win to only a 66 EV win
No Change
Clintons best case remains steady at a 210 EV win
Charts
Discussion
The fact that Trump’s best case is getting worse is pretty much irrelevant. Either candidate winning all the close states is a very low probability event. A few months out it is good to show how things might reasonably move. But on election day, the expected electoral college and the tipping point are the two numbers to watch.
In the last update I speculated that because the tipping point and expected electoral college votes were going in different directions Trump may have topped out. But the movement toward Trump seemed to have a little bit of life in it yet. With the latest batch of update, the Election Graphs poll averages for Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada all move from just barely blue to just barely red. And the tipping point gets a bit narrower too.
Some have suggested there may a strategy to intentionally release Republican leaning polls at the last minute specifically to influence the poll averages, and the impact of some of these polls has been shown to be significant. This probably has something to do with the moves here too. But this site’s philosophy is to basically include all polls with very few exceptions, and when you throw everything in, this is the move you get. Given non-poll-related information on early vote results and such, I have my doubts about Florida and Nevada, but this site will stick to what the numbers say…
…and the numbers say that it is looking very close again. In the expected case Clinton wins by only 8 electoral votes. To flip the election, Trump only has to win Pennsylvania, and Clinton’s lead there is down to 1.6%.
The tipping point margin isn’t quite as small as it it was in September when it was down to 0.4%, but it is close enough that you could easily imagine a Trump win. Right?
Lets check the sites doing odds again for what they think the chances of a Trump win are…
The median estimate of Trump’s chances 2 days ago was 12%. Now it is 14%. So, slight increase, but not a huge one. And if you look at the individual estimates above, many actually went down since two days ago. But if everything is closer, why?
Well, each of the models of course have their own methods, and the movements in each would have a different explanation. Some of them discount or don’t include at all some of the pollsters showing the Trump movement that has moved my averages.
But just looking at the state of the race as a whole instead of specific models… Trump has never been ahead in the electoral college, by most measures he hasn’t ever led the popular vote either, and he’s also never led in Pennsylvania (or the other further off states he would have to flip to win).
So even taking the averages here at face value, and not doubting the status of Florida or Nevada, to win Trump would still need to break his September ceiling and do better than he has done at any time in this race so far. That is possible, but not likely.
Add to that the indications of high Hispanic turnout in several states, notably Florida and Nevada, and that some of the recent polls may be intentionally skewed… and it seems like if someone over performs their polls, it is more likely to be Clinton. But that is looking at things other than the polls themselves.
All and all, the new median of a 14% chance of a Trump upset seems about right.
Maine CD2, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, and Iowa are all within 2% at the moment. They could still go either way based on the current averages. That is enough to swing the election.
So, as has been the case for awhile, a Trump win would be surprising, but should not be shocking. Trump has a path.
We shall all see soon enough.
In New Hampshire we already have some results of course… Dixville Notch, Harts Location, and Millsfield have already reported results. The totals: Trump 32, Clinton 23, plus a handful of votes for others. So there you go.
For real meaningful results, we now have less than 8 hours until parts of Indiana and Kentucky close. Then less than 9 hours until the first full states close and the states start getting called one way or the other.
We are almost there.
State Details
The following are the detailed charts for all the states that influenced the national changes outlined above.
Moving from Clinton to Trump
No longer possible pickups for Trump
Also impacting the tipping point
A note about faithless electors
In the past few days there have been reports of first one, then two, expected electors from Washington state saying that that have decided to or are considering being “faithless electors” by voting for someone other than who they are “supposed to” when the Electoral College votes in December.
Yes, they can do that. In Washington state there would be a $1000 fine if they did, but they can do it, and it would count.
There was also one other potential elector from Georgia who suggested they would be faithless back in August. That potential elector came under extreme pressure and resigned, to be replaced by someone who would presumably vote the “right” way.
That might well happen to these two as well. But faithless electors can and do happen every few election cycles. In the last 50 years there were faithless electors in 2004, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1972, and 1968. That is 6 out of 12 elections during that period. Half. It would not be surprising if there were one or more faithless electors in 2016, especially given the contentious nature of the race. They have never made a difference in the final outcome.
The Election Graphs estimates show what the results “should be” given who wins various states. They do not take into account statements by individual electors on their intentions. If a scenario arises where it is close enough for electors who have made statements like this to potentially make a difference in the outcome or throw the race to the House, we will of course make note of that. And once electors vote in December, we will show the final tallies, including any votes cast by faithless electors.
A note about McMullin
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 12.4% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 9.4% behind the lead. Although McMullin was a lot closer than anyone expected, he never got closer than 5% to the lead in Utah in these averages and now appears to be fading. 538 still has him in second place, but it doesn’t seem likely at this point that he will win electoral votes.
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states and DC.
Notable changes in: Florida (29), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), and the tipping point.
National Summary
It has been about two days since the last update. Since then the changes have been mixed, indicating that perhaps the recent movement toward Trump has topped out.
Good for Trump
The tipping point moves from Clinton by 2.2% in NH to Clinton by 1.8% in NC
Trump’s best case has improved from a 100 EV win to a 112 EV win
Good for Clinton
The expected case moves from Clinton winning by 32 EV to Clinton winning by 108 EV
Clinton’s best case moves from a 178 EV win to a 210 EV win
Charts
Discussion
While we have some indicators moving in each direction, the two to pay attention to are the expected electoral college result and the tipping point. The two “best case” scenarios give all states with a margin under 5% to one candidate or another. Those are both highly unlikely scenarios less than three days out from polls closing.
Even those two indicators are mixed though. If you had to decide who is favored in this update, you would still pick Trump though. Even though his expected electoral total has gone down, the tipping point moves a bit in his favor, meaning that the amount he has to move polls in order to win has lessened.
So while he is losing by more, the amount of effort to change that has still decreased.
The one caveat there is that while the tipping point has improved since my last update, looking at the actual trend line it seems to be down from a recent peak.
If you put all these mixed messages together, it looks like the recent “Trump Surge” may have reached a high water mark… or at least a pause.
At these levels Clinton is of course still winning. The electoral result according to the current averages would be Clinton 323 to Trump 215, a 108 electoral vote win for Clinton. Trump does better than Romney did here, but still loses.
Trump still has ways to win though. The easiest way right now would be for him to pull in Nevada (0.1% Clinton lead), New Hampshire (0.7% Clinton lead), Florida (1.8% Clinton lead), and North Carolina (1.8% Clinton lead). That would get him to a 269-269 tie and throw the election into the House of Representatives, where he would probably win. To win outright, he would need to also pull in Maine’s 2nd congressional district, where Clinton is currently leading by 2.0% in the Election Graphs average.
Moving things by 2% doesn’t seem that big a move in the grand scheme of things, but given the history of the race in terms of what seem to be the candidate’s floors and ceilings, as well as reports of early voting trends in some of those states (specifically Nevada and Florida), moving those states that last little bit is harder than it may seem just looking at the percentages. If anything, the preliminary early voting data seems to indicate Clinton may end up over-performing the polling, not the other way around.
Just to check in with the sites that give odds (which we do not), the chances of a Trump win given all the current information:
The median of these 8 estimates is 12%. That seems reasonable and in line with what I would expect from the Election Graphs numbers and the small amount of time left before the election is over.
2.5 days until polls start to close. We are almost there.
State Details
The following are the detailed charts for all the states that influenced the national changes outlined above.
Moving from Trump to Clinton
Moving from Clinton to Trump
Now possible Trump pickups
Now possible Clinton pickups
No longer possible Trump pickups
Other states that helped move the tipping point
A note about faithless electors
In the past few days there have been reports of first one, then two, expected electors from Washington state saying that that have decided to or are considering being “faithless electors” by voting for someone other than who they are “supposed to” when the Electoral College votes in December.
Yes, they can do that. In Washington state there would be a $1000 fine if they did, but they can do it, and it would count.
There was also one other potential elector from Georgia who suggested they would be faithless back in August. That potential elector came under extreme pressure and resigned, to be replaced by someone who would presumably vote the “right” way.
That might well happen to these two as well. But faithless electors can and do happen every few election cycles. In the last 50 years there were faithless electors in 2004, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1972, and 1968. That is 6 out of 12 elections during that period. Half. It would not be surprising if there were one or more faithless electors in 2016, especially given the contentious nature of the race. They have never made a difference in the final outcome.
The Election Graphs estimates show what the results “should be” given who wins various states. They do not take into account statements by individual electors on their intentions. If a scenario arises where it is close enough for electors who have made statements like this to potentially make a difference in the outcome or throw the race to the House, we will of course make note of that. And once electors vote in December, we will show the final tallies, including any votes cast by faithless electors.
A note about McMullin
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 12.4% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 10.3% behind the lead. Although McMullin was a lot closer than anyone expected, he never got closer than 5% to the lead in Utah in these averages and now appears to be fading. 538 still has him in second place, but it doesn’t seem likely at this point that he will win electoral votes.
If that changes, I will of course note it in these updates and on the Election Graphs site.
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
Edit 13:56 UTC to add an additional paragraph break.
We’ve almost made it! Election 2016 is finally here. In this last episode before the actual votes are tallied, Sam and Ivan start out with some updates from the Republicans Sam interviewed in May and some feedback from a listener, then jump into the campaign events of the last week, before finally discussing faithless electors and final thoughts on what is likely to happen when the votes are counted. This is it folks. We’ve made it to the end. Almost.
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook Support us on Patreon
Show Details:
Recorded 2016-11-05
Length this week – 1:53:34
(0:00:10-0:46:14) Updates and Feedback
Agenda
Update from Matthew
Update from Bruce
Feedback from Lenny
(0:047:17-1:24:20) Election 2016 – The Last Week
Comey Letter
Illegal Melania / Trump Affair
Secret Trump Server? (No.)
Russia DNC Hack
Last minute Trump baiting?
Trump on Obama heckler
Trump rape case
(1:24:59-1:53:14) Election 2016 – The Election Itself
Faithless WA Elector
Polling Update
House and Senate
Ground Game, Early Vote, Hispanic Vote
Clinton beating the polls?
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states, DC, the Maine congressional districts, and the 2nd congressional district in Nebraska.
Notable changes in: Pennsylvania (20), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4), Alaska (3), and the tipping point.
With the current pace of polling, there are already a number of new polls out since the line was cut for this update. They will of course be included in the next update.
National Summary
It has been about four days since the last update. Since then the movement has all been towards Trump. Some of this has been movement from polls taken primarily after the Comey letter, but a some of it also represents movement that was already happening when that news broke.
Good for Trump:
The expected result has moved from a 62 EV Clinton win to only a 32 EV Clinton win
The tipping point has moved from Clinton by 5.3% in PA to Clinton by only 2.2% in NH
Clinton’s best case has declined from a 216 EV win to only a 178 EV win
Trump’s best case has shifted from a 6 EV loss to a 100 EV win
Charts
Discussion
Four days ago Trump had tightened the expected electoral college case, but critical states like Pennsylvania were moving against him, so the job of getting to 270 electoral votes was actually getting harder despite the electoral college gap narrowing.
Not so any more. In the last few days, which added lots of post-Comey polls (as well as some covering the pre-Comey period too) the movement has ALL been toward Trump. There is no mixed message this time. No bright side for Clinton. In the last few days almost all of the polling news has been good for Trump and bad for Clinton.
Now, she is still ahead. But Trump once again has a path. The “easiest” path at this point would be to win all the states he is currently leading, then pull in Nevada (0.6% Clinton lead), Iowa (0.9% Clinton lead) and New Hampshire (2.2% Clinton lead). Or he could get any one of those states, plus Virginia (3.2% Clinton lead). Or just Pennsylvania (3.4% Clinton lead). Or just Michigan (4.3% Clinton lead).
All of these states are ones where a few days ago Clinton’s lead was much stronger. Trump has been making gains all over the map.
How much of this is Comey? Some for sure, but as I’ve pointed out before, the expected electoral college been moving slowly toward Trump for weeks. But that did seem to have somewhat stalled out. The tipping point was moving back toward Clinton. With the Comey letter the move toward Trump came back with a vengeance.
We’re not quite at Trump’s highs from September, but we are getting near there. Now, even at his best point in September, Trump was still losing to Clinton. But it was close. And it is close again now. The Trump surge is real, and he has made this a race again.
The tipping point is at 2.2%. That is within the zone where a systematic polling error or a last minute news event that happens too late to be captured in polls could reverse the result. A Trump win COULD happen. This is not impossible.
Clinton is still heavily favored though.
This site does not produce “odds”, just the range of “you shouldn’t be completely shocked” outcomes, which is intentionally pretty wide. Right now, a Clinton win is expected, but a Trump win is not out of the question.
Lots of places do produce odds though. Here is the current rundown in terms of percentage chance of Trump winning:
I was asked on Twitter yesterday for my odds. Given that my model does not produce a number for this, I was reluctant to give an exact number. But I gave a range and said between 5% and 10%. With a few additional polls added since then, I’d go toward the higher end of that range. Maybe 7% to 10%.
Why that range?
Trump is getting very close to Clinton, but in all the prior polling movement in the campaign Trump has never been able to actually pull into the lead. It seems like he reaches a ceiling and gets to the point where to gain any further he has to not just convince the wishy-washy undecideds, but he has to start getting actual Clinton supporters to flip, which seems like a much harder job.
But until September I thought Trump’s ceiling was matching Romney’s performance in 2012. With current polling, Trump wins every state Romney won, then adds Florida and Ohio. So levels that look like ceilings can indeed be broken. Another bad news cycle for Clinton, or even some systematic error in the polling could easily put us there.
So 7% to 10% seems reasonable.
If a Trump win does happen, surprise is warranted, because he would have beaten the odds, but not shock, because he IS close.
If Trump was a hurricane that was four days out, we would be “within the cone”. Toward the edge of the cone to be sure. We are not directly on the projected path. We expect it to miss us. But we would be making preparations just in case the storm swerves and hits us.
4.3 days until we stop looking at polls and start looking at actual election results.
State Details
The following are the detailed charts for all the states that influenced the national changes outlined above.
Moving from Clinton to Trump
Moving into reach for Trump
Moving out of Clinton’s reach
Other states that helped move the tipping point
A note about McMullin
Election Graphs is designed around showing the Republican – Democrat margin, and there is not enough time before the election to revamp the site to properly account for 3rd parties that are strong enough to have a shot at winning electoral votes.
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 12.0% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 10.3% behind the lead. Although McMullin was a lot closer than anyone expected, he never got closer than 5% to the lead in Utah in these averages and now appears to be fading. 538 still has him in second place, but it doesn’t seem likely at this point that he will win electoral votes.
If that changes, I will of course note it in these updates and on the Election Graphs site.
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
Edit 17:45 UTC to fix some wording in the hurricane comparison paragraph.
It has been about five days since the last update. Since then the movement has been decidedly mixed.
Note that as of this update, no polls have been included that contain interviews done after the release of the “Comey Letter”.
Good for Trump:
The expected result has moved from a 130 EV Clinton win to only a 62 EV Clinton win
Clinton’s best case has declined from a 234 EV win to only a 216 EV win
Good for Clinton:
The tipping point moves from Clinton by 4.1% in PA to Clinton by 5.3% in PA
Trump’s best case declines from a 34 EV win to a 6 EV loss
Charts
Discussion
While some metrics have moved in Trump’s direction and others in Clinton’s, in the end this picture is bad news for Trump. Why is that? Fundamentally, doesn’t the fact that the “expected case” moved toward Trump mean that he is doing better?
Well, it means the margin he will lose by is getting smaller, yes. However, if you are trying to look for scenarios where Trump would actually catch up and win, the tipping point is what you want to be looking at. To win he has to move the tipping point state (or states he is even further behind in) over to his side of the line. And the tipping point is moving further away at the moment.
If you look at the tipping point chart you can see that Trump had indeed been making progress on the tipping point starting about when the Access Hollywood tape dropped. But that started to reverse around the 23rd. At the same time that his expected electoral college result was still improving.
This is still confusing. What is happening? Well, all the states aren’t moving in lock step in reaction to events. A number of close states have moved toward Trump, like Florida for instance. But key states like Pennsylvania have been moving away from him. Because of this divergence, we can have Trump improving his electoral college “score” while simultaneously the path to 270 electoral votes gets harder.
And in fact, at the moment, 270 looks out of reach for Trump. Look at the spectrum of the close states above. Right now Trump could win every state he is ahead in, then also pull over the states where he is close… Nevada (0.4% Clinton lead), Iowa (1.5% Clinton lead), Maine CD2 (2.5% Clinton lead), and North Carolina (3.8% Clinton lead)… and Trump would still lose by 6 electoral votes.
To win, Trump has to win all of the close states, plus Pennsylvania, where Clinton has a 5.3% lead at the moment… or one of the other larger “Strong Clinton” states… Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado, Minnesota, or Virginia… all of which Clinton currently leads by even bigger margins. (New Hampshire isn’t enough to push Trump over the edge with only 4 EV.)
This is a really big pull with so little time left. The Trump side seems to be hanging their hopes on the fallout from the Comey Letter. This may cause some movement, but early indications are that almost all voters made up their minds on the Clinton email issue and if it mattered to them long long ago, and this is unlikely to change many minds.
We’ll start to see if there is any movement due to the letter within a few days. But there just are not that many days left. Sites that give odds for Trump winning range from less than 0.01% on the low side to 24.4% on the high side. The median odds seem to be around 5%. That isn’t impossible. But those odds are low enough that a Trump win would be a very big surprise.
There is another goal that Trump has a much better shot at though. If the election ends up exactly how things look today, Trump will lose by only 62 electoral votes. That would mean that Trump would do better than both McCain (lost by 192 EV) and Romney (lost by 126 EV). It may not be an actual win, but Trump improving on the performance of both previous Republican candidates may give the message to Republicans that a Trump like candidate in 2020 might be the way to go rather than returning to Romney or McCain style Republicanism.
We shall see.
8.1 days left until we start getting actual election results.
We are almost there.
State Details
The following are the detailed charts for all the states that influenced the national changes outlined above.
Moving from Clinton to Trump
Moving from Trump to Clinton
Now a possible Clinton pickup
Now out of Trump’s reach
Now out of Clinton’s reach
Also influencing the tipping point
A note about McMullin
Election Graphs is designed around showing the Republican – Democrat margin, and there is not enough time before the election to revamp the site to properly account for 3rd parties that are strong enough to have a shot at winning electoral votes.
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 6.0% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 7.3% behind the lead. If/when McMullin is within 5% according to either of these averages, I will add notes to both the Utah and National pages about the possibility of McMullin winning Utah’s 6 electoral votes.
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
With less than two weeks until the election, Curmudgeon’s Corner this week is of course fully election themed. We discuss the campaign developments of the last week, but also look at larger themes of the divisions in today’s America, what may happen after the elections, how Trump took over the Republican party, and… oh… Ivan got polled!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook Support us on Patreon
Show Details:
Recorded 2016-10-28
Length this week – 1:27:44
(0:01:37-0:49:36) Election 2016 Part 1
Ivan’s cold
Divisions in America
Trump’s Republican takeover
After the election?
Polls and odds
Does Trump know he is going to lose?
Ivan got polled by Gravis!
Polling methods
Voting logistics
Yard signs
Trump black support
(0:50:45-1:27:24) Election 2016 Part 2
Cooking curry
Things we aren’t talking about
Quiet campaign week
Clinton Foundation
Pence’s plane
Biden for Secretary of State
Filibusters
Scott Adams analysis
Trump in the primaries
Newt and Kelly
Flat race
Bill Weld for Clinton?
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states, DC, and the Maine congressional districts
Notable changes in: Iowa, Georgia, Utah, Alaska, Indiana, Missouri, Maine (CD2), and the tipping point
National Summary
It has been about six days since my last update and the trend since then has been toward Trump. Here are the stats:
Good for Trump:
The expected result changed from a 140 EV Clinton win to a 130 EV Clinton win
The tipping point moved from Clinton by 4.9% in PA to Clinton by 4.1% in PA
Clinton’s best case declined from a 238 EV win to only a 234 EV win
No change
Trump’s best case remained a 34 EV win
Charts
Discussion
With all the data we have now, looking back to the release of “the tape” on October 7th the overall movement has been mixed. Both candidates have improved their “best cases” as states that were not close have gotten closer… on both sides. So this doesn’t show a move toward one candidate or another, but rather some red states getting less red while simultaneously some blue states got less blue.
Some of the really close states moved across the center line… in both directions… resulting in a net movement of the expected electoral college margin toward Trump by 24 electoral votes… but the most indicative sign of movement toward Trump is actually the tipping point.
Since the release of the tape the tipping point has moved from Clinton leading by 6.0% (in Virginia) to Clinton leading by only 4.1% (in Pennsylvania). So… with some of the worst news cycles for a politician in decades, with day after day after day of negative revelations… Trump improved his position by nearly 2%.
How to interpret this? My best guess… Most people were pretty well set on their Trump vs Clinton choice prior to the reveal of the tapes and the subsequent sexual assault allegations. In the wake of the first debate the part of the public that was persuadable had already swung us from near Trump’s ceiling to near Trump’s floor. With the string of additional bad news, very few die hard Trump supporters moved away from him, while some number of those persuadables viewed this as the press piling on Trump and went back to him thinking this was unfair.
But to be honest, the above is trying to make up a story to fit the numbers. Is it right? I don’t know.
In the end though, the reality is that in the face of a hurricane of bad coverage, Trump has actually improved his position.
Despite the improvement, Trump is still losing by a significant margin, but Trump’s best case does still includes a win.
If he keeps all the states he leads, then flips Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania, he could still pull out a narrow win. Arizona is close enough it could flip back easily enough. North Carolina and Florida have both been back and forth over the past couple months, so seeing them go red again would not be shocking.
Pennsylvania is the hard pull. While he made it close in September, Trump has never led in Pennsylvania. And Trump needs Pennsylvania to win. Right now, this is Clinton’s firewall.
Clinton would clearly like to be leading in Pennsylvania by more than 4.1%… but even at that margin, it is a tall wall for Trump to climb.
There are 13.7 days left until the first polls close. With less than two weeks left to go now, it is almost certainly too late for Trump to flip all the states he would need to flip in order to win. But if he manages to continue the trend of the last couple of weeks, it is enough time for him to make it close enough that Democrats will start to panic.
State Details
The following are the detailed state charts for states that influenced the status changes since the last update.
Weak Clinton to Weak Trump
Weak Trump to Weak Clinton
Influencing the tipping point
Now possible Clinton pickups
No longer possible pickups for Clinton
A note about McMullin
Election Graphs is designed around showing the Republican – Democrat margin, and there is not enough time before the election to revamp the site to properly account for 3rd parties that are strong enough to have a shot at winning electoral votes.
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 5.5% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 8.5% behind the lead. If/when McMullin is within 5% according to either of these averages, I will add notes to both the Utah and National pages about the possibility of McMullin winning Utah’s 6 electoral votes.
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
On Curmudgeon’s Corner this week we are in the home stretch to the election and that is the main topic. The third debate, the Al Smith dinner, updates on the polls, and more. Prior to that though, Sam and Ivan do a quick bit about Vegas, Reno, and gambling.
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook Support us on Patreon
Show Details:
Recorded 2016-10-21
Length this week – 1:25:34
(0:00:10-0:24:50) But First
What we are skipping
Voting
De La Fuente
Vegas
Sam’s Reno Story
(0:25:28-1:05:44) Election 2016 – Part 1
Polling Update
Honoring Election Results
Voter Fraud
Pence
Lawsuits
Republican Split?
Congress
Trump’s Guests
(1:06:33-1:25:10) Election 2015 – Part 2
Firebombing
Al Smith Dinner
McMullin
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states and DC.
Notable changes in: Ohio, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and the tipping point
National Summary
Despite the widespread view that the time between the Vice Presidential debate and the present has essentially been non-stop bad news for Trump that could only cause his number to fall, and the fact that the national popular vote numbers do show this kind of trend, the electoral college view has just plain not shown that. In fact, looking at the various electoral college numbers we track here, things have mostly been moving in Trump’s direction since the 2nd debate. In the latest update, we have these changes:
Good for Trump:
Expected case moves from a 154 EV win for Clinton to a 140 EV win for Clinton
Tipping point moves from Clinton by 5.4% in VA to Clinton by 4.9% in PA
Trump best case improves from a 6 EV loss to a 34 EV win
Good for Clinton:
Clinton best case improves from a 204 EV win to a 238 EV win
While Clinton’s best case does improve a bit (although this may be due to outliers, see state details below), for the most part the movement here is toward Trump. It is not a huge movement, but it also doesn’t look like Trump continuing to crash.
Here are the charts:
While we do have Indiana and Kansas moving into the “Weak Trump” category, and thus expanding Clinton’s best case, the net changes for the expected case and tipping point are both in Trump’s direction, and Trump improves his best case as well, with Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania down from where it was at the VP debate.
Looking at both charts, while Trump may have improved a bit from his lows, what this really looks like is that we have reached a plateau and things have basically been flat since the VP debate, minus some jiggles around the edges by states that are right near my category boundaries.
There are still events that aren’t factored in here, including some of the later sexual assault allegations, and of course the third debate. So things may start moving again in the next few updates. But for now… basically flat.
The “best case”, if Trump wins all his states, plus all the states where he is within 5%, now once again registers a narrow Trump win. But that would still require either a fairly large systematic polling error, or a last minute Trump surge. The “bubble” shows the extreme range of “conceivable possibilities”, but the edges of the bubble are still very unlikely. We’re far more likely to get results closer to the “expected” line.
Looking at the expected result, we are once again we are in the zone where Trump does better than McCain, but worse than Romney. That is a solid Clinton win, but not any sort of unprecedented loss for Trump. Just a normal sort of electoral loss. At least in terms of the electoral college.
We’ll see if anything causes that to change.
19.3 days left until we start getting real vote counts instead of polls…
State Details
Weak Clinton to Weak Trump
Trump now leads Ohio by 0.9%, but Ohio has been bouncing up and down right around the center line for months. It had been trending toward Clinton until a recent batch of polls that were better for Trump. Really could go either way.
Weak Trump to Weak Clinton
Clinton is now at +1.6% in Arizona. The state has been trending in her direction since the 1st debate. It is still close though, and this could be reversed. There is a reason we call the “weak” states weak.
Into reach for Trump
Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania grew considerably after the 1st debate, but has been shrinking again since the VP debate. It now stands at only 4.9%, which means we once again consider it within reach for Trump. If Trump managed to stretch out and win Pennsylvania, his overall shot of winning the White House is significantly greater. But he has never led in the Pennsylvania poll average. So that will still take a significant move from where we are now…
Into reach for Clinton
The Election Graphs average now has Trump’s lead in Indiana down to only 4.0%. This puts it in the “Weak Trump” category. I’m not sure I really believe this though. This is pulled downward by two Google polls showing Clinton actually leading in Indiana, which are outliers compared to the rest of the Indiana results. Without Google, the average would be Trump leading by 8.0%. Indiana is closer than it was a few months ago. It HAS been trending slowly away from Trump. But take Indiana as a swing state with a dose of salt until non-Google polls show it there too.
Use the rest of your salt for Kansas, and for the same reason. Google. Without the Google polls, the average in Kansas would not be Trump by 2.7%, it would be Trump by 15.0%. Kansas is lightly polled, so Google has an outsized influence. And the Google results are WAY off from what any other pollster has seen.
Also impacted the tipping point
A note about McMullin
In the last week or two McMullin has spiked in Utah. Some individual polls now even show him leading in Utah. All of the current Election Graphs metrics and charts operate under the assumption that no third party has a realistic shot at winning electoral votes. I have had the outline of a contingency plan on how to modify the site to accommodate 3rd parties that might win electoral votes for months, but activating it would take quite a lot of time and effort. If a 3rd candidate had gotten to that position a month or two ago, the site would definitely have been revamped to adjust for that possibility. As it is, there realistically is no longer time to do that before election day.
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah has McMullin 6.4% behind the lead. The 538 average in Utah has him 11.1% behind the lead. If/when McMullin is within 5% according to either of these averages, I will add notes to both the Utah and National pages talking about the possibility of McMullin winning Utah’s 6 electoral votes, but I probably won’t try to revamp the site to change absolutely everything to account for the possibility. I’ll try to have something ready for 2020 just in case though. :-)
For more information…
This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks a state poll based estimate of the Electoral College. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
States with new poll data added since the last update: Everywhere except Alaska, DC, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming, and the Nebraska congressional districts.
Notable changes in: Indiana and the tipping point
National Summary
We now have plenty of polls that are after the Access Hollywood tape and after the 2nd debate, and even a few from after the various sexual assault allegations leveled against Donald Trump. The averages go back further, often covering 2-3 weeks, even for the close states. But we are getting to the point where we should be seeing impact from those events.
After the first debate, we did see a big drop. It continued through to release of the tape and the second debate. We are still getting polls covering the period immediately after that, so things may yet change… but so far there has not been a further drop since those events.
In fact, we have seen an improvement for Trump since the last update:
The tipping point moved from Clinton by 6.5% in PA to Clinton by 5.4% in VA.
Clinton’s best case declined from a 226 EV win to only a 204 EV win.
The expected case and Trump’s best case remained the same.
Here are the charts:
Both charts show a bit of improvement for Trump based on the last few days of polls.
Now, it might be wise to be cautious here. We are still going to get more polls covering this period. So these lines will move about some more. But it is also very possible that Trump hit his floor, and we’re now bouncing back a bit from that.
The public is very polarized. There is a percentage of Americans who will vote Democrat no matter what, and another percentage who will vote Republican no matter what. We may have seen both extremes of the how far things can change by those in the middle sloshing back and forth. If so, the extremes of this race go from a nearly tied race at Trump’s ceiling, to about a 188 electoral vote win for Clinton at her ceiling. Those are “expected case” numbers. In terms of the tipping point that translates into a Clinton lead of between approximately 0.5% and 6%.
Given recent news cycles and where things stand now, it currently seems as if a break through Trump’s floor is more likely than through his ceiling. As has been pointed out, a comeback from this far behind with this little time left would be unprecedented. But while it is possible that events may cause us to break out of that range, it seems very likely that when the votes come in on November 8th, we’ll find ourselves somewhere between those bounds.
But we shall see soon enough… 22.1 days left to go!
State Details
Moving out of Clinton’s reach
The general trend in Indiana has been a steadily weakening lead for Trump. But with the latest polls, the average pops up to a 5.9% Trump lead, so for now, Indiana is no longer in the “could go either way” category.
State that changed the tipping point
A note about McMullin
In the last week or two McMullin has spiked in Utah. Some individual polls show him within striking range of winning Utah. All of the current Election Graphs metrics and charts operate under the assumption that no third party has a realistic shot at winning electoral votes. I have had the outline of a contingency plan on how to modify the site to accommodate 3rd parties that might win electoral votes, but activating it would take quite a lot of work. If a 3rd candidate had gotten to that position a month or two ago, the site would definitely have been revamped to adjust for that possibility. As it is, there simply may not be time to do that before election day.
Right now the Real Clear Politics average in Utah, which includes McMullin, stands at Trump 31.8%, Clinton 25.5%, McMullin 22.8%, Johnson 8.8%, Stein 1.0%. (The Election Graphs Utah average currently stands at Trump 39.0%, Clinton 26.8%, but doesn’t yet include at least one poll that came out as this update was being finalized.) If and when the RCP average shows McMullin within 5% of the lead in the state, I will at the very least put notes at appropriate places on the site noting he has the possibility of winning 6 electoral votes. I will consider more substantial changes only if time allows.
For more information…
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. 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. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.
