This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner, Ed joins Sam to talk about all of this weeks Trump troubles. They have all your Flynn, Manafort, and Cohen updates. But they also talk about Trump’s housekeepers, a double jeopardy case at SCOTUS, the North Carolina election fraud investigation, and a milestone for the show.
Click below to listen and subscribe!
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Show Details:
Recorded 2018-12-08 Length this week – 1:12:36
(0:00:20-0:35:02) Trump Troubles
Flynn
Manafort
Cohen
(0:36:22-1:12:16) Sorta Lightning Round
Ed: Trump’s housekeepers
Ed: Double jeopardy
Ed: North Carolina election fraud
Sam: Episode 600
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner, Sam and Ivan’s biggest topic is of course Russia Russia Russia, as we discuss all of this last week’s hubbub about Russian interference with the election, and everybody’s responses to that. But we also take one last look at the Electoral College before they vote, and do a segment on Apple products. Rounding it out, we cover being sick, taking parents or kids to work, the drama over the North Carolina governorship, Ivanka as First Lady, and more…
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 2016-12-17
Length this week – 2:25:37
(0:00:10-0:17:15) But First
Agenda
Everybody sick
The unknown friend
Bring parents/children to work days
Sick kids at school
Salt rooms
(0:18:00-1:03:59) Russia Russia Russia
Didn’t we know this?
Intentional misdirection?
Was it decisive? Does it matter?
Clinton team blaming everything but themselves
Obama’s response
Tillerson Nomination
Hacking vs Disinformation/Propaganda
Republican response
Retaliation?
Snowden Comparison
Trump denial/connection?]
(1:04:38-1:29:35) Electoral College
Hamilton Electors
How many will be faithless?
Who will they vote for?
Record number of faithless electors?
House scenarios
State binding laws
(1:30:44-1:53:57) Apple Stuff
New TV app
MacBook Pro battery
Ivan’s iPad Pro
iPhone 6s batteries
Apple News
AllSides
(1:54:37-2:25:17) Lightning Round
North Carolina Governor drama
Some more Trump appointments
Facebook fake news effort
Sam and Brandy donations
Ivanka as First Lady
Trump can’t divest?
China goading Trump?
Trump Tower visitors
Future of Obamacare
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: 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.
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.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All of them. Multiple times. There are additional new polls since I had to cut things off for this update as well. Those will be in the next update.
National Summary
The last week of polls has been devastating to Trump’s position. In the last update we were just starting to see the reaction from the first debate. With this batch the post-debate polling continued to roll in, and while there were a couple of minor moves toward Trump, the net change in this update was a dramatic move toward Clinton:
The expected result moved from Clinton by 6 electoral votes to Clinton by 154 electoral votes
The tipping point moved from Clinton by 2.1% in CO to Clinton by 4.5% in MI
Trump’s best case moved from a 60 EV win to a 26 EV win
Clinton’s best case moved from a 208 EV win to a 196 EV win
Looking at the charts:
The previous update mentioned some Trump losses starting a week or two before the debate. With a lot more polls filling in the time period right before the debate as well as right after, it now looks like those losses were reversed before the debate.
In the time after the debate though, all three indicators on the chart have moved in Clinton’s direction. The race is now essentially back to where it was at the beginning of September. We’re not yet back at Clinton’s high point from August, but it is getting close.
The tipping point chart is even more stark. As with the electoral college view, it looks like Trump’s mid-September declines were reversed by debate time, but after the debate everything falls off a cliff. Most of Trump’s gains from August and September are gone. Right before the debate he topped out with Clinton only ahead in the tipping point metric by 0.4%.
Clinton now leads by 4.5%. The tipping point state is Michigan. Clinton only has to increase her lead slightly there to not just take Michigan out of reach for Trump, but the Presidency.
What we are seeing in the polling results right now at this point probably fully factors in the debate itself. But we are just starting to see the impact from Trump’s “worst week in presidential campaign history ” that started with the debate, continued with his attacks on Alicia Machado, and ended with the leak of some of his tax information. The events of that week are not yet fully baked in.
And of course, the polls do not yet reflect the VP debate, or more importantly, the 2005 Trump video that was leaked on Friday. It is hard to imagine the events of the last few days NOT having an impact on the polls.
And the next debate is coming up. It should be interesting. If you were not planning on tuning in before, change your plans.
31.7 days left until the first actual election results start coming in.
State Details
A lot of states moved in order to produce the summary results above. For those interested in looking at the state by state details, they are below:
Weak Trump to Weak Clinton
Moving out of reach for Trump
Moving out of reach for Clinton
Moving into reach for Trump
States that changed categories but then moved right back again
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.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states, and DC. Notable changes in the tipping point plus New Mexico, Maine (at large), Kansas, and Missouri.
National Summary
With the latest batch of updates, there was a lot of churn that caused some big movements if you look at the charts. For a while as I entered polls it looked like Trump’s peak was definite and a clear downward trend was in place, even before the debate. But then as I continued to enter polls, most of those Clinton gains were reversed.
The primary reason for this? Florida [29 EV], Ohio [18 EV], and North Carolina [15 EV] are all currently very close in my averages. Close enough that single polls can move them back and forth across the center line. As I worked through this round of poll updates, all three of these states moved from Weak Trump to Weak Clinton and back again. Now, the actual changes in the averages in these three states were not much. They just happened to pass the zero line, and have large numbers of electoral votes.
So if you look at the “Expected Case” chart for the electoral college, you see a big move toward Clinton, then a big reversal a few days later. Because of the nature of the electoral college, you should expect (and be careful interpreting) large electoral college moves like this so long as there are big states that are close. In these cases looking at the tipping point provides a different view with a bit less volatility.
In any case, looking only at the final net change from this round of polls, we see these changes in the national picture:
The expected case moves from Clinton by 8 EV to Clinton by 6 EV
Clinton’s best case improves from Clinton by 188 EV to Clinton by 208 EV
Trump’s best case declines from Trump by 106 EV to Trump by 92 EV
The tipping point moves from Clinton by 0.1% in KS to Clinton by 1.3% in NH
Now, this round includes a handful of post-debate polls, but almost all of the movement discussed here comes from before the debate. (The exception is Florida returning to Weak Trump after the debate.)
Looking at the charts…
Notice the clear dip from about September 19th to September 28th when Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina went slightly blue, then moved slightly red again. In the end, the “expected case” remained flat. The movement Clinton saw from winning by 6 electoral votes to 8 electoral votes in the last update was erased by New Mexico and Kansas both returning to their “normal” colors.
Both “best cases” moved toward Clinton though, with New Mexico and Maine at large both moving out of Trump’s reach, while Missouri moved into Clinton’s reach.
The tipping point chart doesn’t end up with huge moves when big states cross the center line, so it might be a better chart to look at right now to see how the race is moving. What we see is that after big gains starting with Trump’s campaign shakeup on August 17th, Trump seems to have peaked around September 7th… way up from where he had been, but never actually taking the lead… and he has been on a slow decline ever since… but we haven’t yet seen a BIG move back toward Clinton.
By most reports, Trump did badly in the debate, and has been doing things counter-productive to his campaign since the debate. But this does not mean large numbers of people have changed sides. Maybe this will happen, maybe it won’t, but the small number of post-debate polls already included here don’t yet show it. (In fact, as I mentioned, the single state category change post-debate so far is a move toward Trump.)
Additional post-debate polls are coming in quickly now, but I had to cut off the round poll updates somewhere to get this blog post out. There will be another update soon enough, and we’ll start to see a bit better what (if any) lasting change comes out of the first debate. Of course just about as soon as there has been enough time to see that in the polls, it will be time for the next debates…
39.4 days left until polls start to close.
State Details
For those digging into the details, here are the charts for all the states influencing the analysis above:
The big close states:
Weak Clinton to Weak Trump
Strong Trump numbers from Ipsos and CVoter balance out the strong Clinton numbers from Google and leave us with an essentially tied Kansas and erase the short blue period for the state I noted last time. (The Ipsos and CVoter results came out later, but covered an earlier time period, so they moved the lines in the past, not just the current number.)
As I stated last time I am incredulous about the Google numbers, and wish there was more additional polling in Kansas to clear up what is really going on there.
Weak Trump to Strong Clinton
New polls in New Mexico erased the short foray into red territory for New Mexico. As with Kansas, since some of the “new” polls covered older date ranges, the shape of the curve in the past changed as well as the current number.
Strong Trump to Weak Trump
Weak Clinton to Strong Clinton
Other states that influenced the Tipping Point
Note on placing polls on the timeline
I somehow forgot to mention this in my recent interview about this site, but it seems relevant to the discussion above… Many other election tracking sites place polls based on the END of the poll’s time in the field. I place polls on the timeline based on the mid-date of their time in the field. I think this does a better job at trying to identify when directional changes happen, because if an event and a mid-date are aligned, you know that the poll was half before and half after the event. When you place polls by the end of their field time, you can’t make any sort of statements like that about how the poll results match up with the event without referring to the specific start and end dates.
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.
Edit 2016-10-01 00:34 UTC to correct the one state that moved after the debates. I had said it was North Carolina moving back from Weak Clinton to Weak Trump, it was actually Florida.
States with new poll data added since the last update: All 50 states and DC. Multiple times each. Notable changes in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Maine (All), and Georgia.
There have been tons of polls, including “50 state” polls from three different sources, one of which had weekly data going back four weeks that needed to be added. There were many shifts caused by this batch of polls. We’ll look at all the charts, but lets start with the headline:
The Romney Barrier
The averages in Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina all moved from Clinton to Trump. Iowa did move in the opposite direction, but it is much smaller, so the net change was dramatically toward Trump.
Before this batch of changes, the “expected” result if everybody won the states they lead was Clinton 341 to Trump 197… a 144 electoral vote win for Clinton.
With this batch of polls, the expected result is now Clinton 285 to Trump 253. This is still a Clinton win, but now by only 32 electoral votes.
From February onward this race had been stuck in the zone with Trump losing by margins between McCain’s loss (192 electoral votes) and Romney’s loss (126 electoral votes).
For the first time since February, Trump is now looking like he would do better than Romney did. Trump now matches Romney’s map, but adds Florida and Ohio. It isn’t quite enough to win, but Trump is now closer than he has ever been… and doing better than the last two Republican candidates.
Some folks were looking at Clinton’s lead in mid-August and were trumpeting the possibility of a Clinton landslide in early August. It was just looking like a solid win for Clinton back then, not a landslide, but things have actually moved in the opposite direction. A 32 electoral college win is more like a squeaker. It would only take Michigan flipping to get us to a 269 to 269 electoral college tie.
(There were also changes in the “best cases” from a lot of states moving in both directions. Trump’s best case went from winning by 68 electoral votes to winning by 66 electoral votes. Clinton’s best case went from winning by 210 electoral votes to winning by 190. So the overall range of possible outcomes reduced.)
Tipping Point
Now, despite the expected case moving in Trump’s direction, changes in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had the net effect of… zero. Well, to be precise the tipping point changed from a 3.4% Clinton lead in Florida to a 3.4% Clinton lead in Michigan. So the state that holds the balance shifted, but the actual percentage did not.
Looking at the trends though, rather than just the change in this update, while the expected case has clearly been moving in Trumps direction the last few weeks, the tipping point has been trending toward Clinton.
What does this mean?
At a basic level it means that while Trump has made the race closer, pulling over the next few states he needs to win is getting harder.
3.4% is still close, but if Trump is at or near his ceiling, it may be a tough last 3.4% to move.
To be absolutely clear, with all of the above Clinton is still a strong favorite. Trump has made it a lot closer than it was, but he still has a lot of work to do to pull the remaining states he would need past the line to secure an electoral college victory. It isn’t impossible. It is just very hard.
Individual States
OK, with the two national summaries out of the way, time for a run down of all the states that shifted in ways that caused changes to the expected or best cases. I’ll just do a run down of all the graphs without commentary on each one. For the most part they speak for themselves. Keep an eye out for the polls that look like outliers. In some cases if new polls don’t back those up, the changes described here may reverse themselves quickly as new polls come in.
States moving from Clinton to Trump:
States moving from Trump to Clinton:
States now in play for Trump:
States now in play for Clinton:
States no longer in play for Trump:
States no longer in play for Clinton:
What’s Next
This batch of polls was huge, so in the time it took me to complete it, there have already been a bunch of new polls which I will be adding as soon as I can. Even if those polls don’t change anything, there will be polls soon enough that do. This is a dynamic race, and as I post this we have 54.7 days left until we start getting the actual results. Hang on tight, we’re in for a nice ride before we are done.
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. 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.
New polls since last update: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia.
This is the fourth day in a row where there have been changes to the Election Graphs model based on new polling. That is quite a bit! The pace of polling is accelerating as we approach the conventions.
The new additions today that caused changes were all from a series of swing state polls released by Ballotpedia. The Ballotpedia results look very bad for Trump. In terms of the Election Graph model, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia all jumped into categories more favorable to Clinton, and the movements in Ohio and Pennsylvania contributed to a move in the tipping point toward Clinton.
All in all, the net result is that once again even if Trump were to win all the states he is ahead in, plus all the states where he is less than 5% behind, he would still lose. As recently as yesterday I said that Trump was up or flat from one and two months ago on all four metrics tracked here. Today’s results flip that overnight. Trump is now DOWN or flat on all four metrics when compared to either one or two months ago. Perhaps these polls will turn out to be outliers, but for the moment, Trump’s position looks much weaker than it did… and it was pretty weak to start with.
Lets go over each of states that shifted the model. Although just released, these polls covered June 10 to June 22, so the changes show up on the charts on the midpoint, June 16th. So the shape of the charts over the last couple weeks is modified, not just the very end of the charts.
Pennsylvania
A series of relatively good polls for Trump that showed Pennsylvania close had resulted in a nice spike toward Trump. But with the new polls from Ballotpedia (one including Johnson, one with just Clinton and Trump, both showing a 14% Clinton lead) the average again moves dramatically toward Clinton, now showing a 7.2% Clinton lead.
Now, it is clear that the new polls are dramatically different than the other recent polls, so the possibility that they are not really representative can’t be thrown out. On the other hand, they are still within the very wide range we have seen polls over the past few months. Election Graphs includes all polls in the average and lets the average wash it out. If Ballotpedia is not representative of the “real” trend, new polls should show that before very long.
For the moment though, Pennsylvania moves to “Strong Clinton” and is no longer included in Trump’s best case.
North Carolina
In North Carolina the two Ballotpedia polls (Clinton leading by 7% and 10%) not only pull North Carolina from Weak Trump to Weak Clinton, but because these polls covered a time period before the recent upward movement by Trump it actually completely erases that brief period in the red zone for North Carolina. Clinton now leads by 3.4% and North Carolina is back on the blue side of the ledger.
Virginia
Virginia is also a state where Trump had made the state close, but the new polls wipe that out. Here the new Ballotpedia polls show Clinton ahead by 7% and 8%, and the new average is Clinton by 5.2%. This takes Virginia back out of Trump’s list of potential pickups and further damages his “best case”.
Ohio
The new Ballotpedia polls (Clinton by 7% and 9%) actually briefly moved Ohio into the “Strong Clinton” category, but since there was already a later PPP poll (Clinton by 4%) there is no net category change in today’s update. The movement in Ohio, along with the movement in Pennsylvania, both contributed to the change in the tipping point though.
National Picture
So where do all these changes put the national picture?
The most recent move on this chart is actually an upward movement toward Trump. This is Ohio moving back to “Weak Clinton” after the brief period as “Strong Clinton” described in the Ohio section. But the major move in todays updates is overall movement away from Trump.
Trump’s “expected case” moved from a 108 electoral vote loss (which is now wiped from the chart) to a 138 electoral vote loss, which is where the expected case has now been all but a few days since March.
Meanwhile Trump’s “best case” moved from an 18 electoral vote win, to a 48 electoral vote loss.
And the tipping point also moves:
The tipping point moved from a 4.0% Clinton lead in Ohio, to a 5.5% Clinton lead in Minnesota.
The center of the spectrum of the states now looks like this:
To be clear: Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and North Carolina currently look like “close states” that Trump could possibly pick up. Clinton doesn’t need any of them. She could give all four of them to Trump on a silver platter and he would still lose. She could throw in Virginia as well, and even give him the 2nd district of Maine… and she would still win.
Now, if these Ballotpedia results turn out to just be bad polling, the averages will pop back a bit more toward Trump once we get a few more polls in these states. But for the moment, Trump’s averages just took a serious dive. He isn’t in the worst shape against Clinton ever… that happened at the beginning of May… but he is close.
132.0 days until the polls start to close. Much more fun to come…
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. 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.
Since the last update there have only been polls in North Carolina and Texas, but North Carolina makes a difference:
A particularly good poll for Clinton from April rolls off the average and now all the recent polls have Trump ahead or tied in North Carolina. The average is now a 2.2% Trump lead. North Carolina has been back and forth between Clinton and Trump several times over the last year, but Trump’s position at the moment is now better than it has been since last September.
Only a month ago, Clinton was at her best position in the last year. Is this an actual dramatic swing toward Trump in North Carolina? Maybe. It is also possible that there is just highly volatile polling, and Clinton had a good run, and now Trump is having a good run. The bottom line is that North Carolina has spent all but a handful of weeks in the last year with neither candidate having a lead of more than 5%. In other words, it is a close state that could go either way.
But for now, Trump is once again in the lead, so North Carolina goes into his column for the expected results:
Since North Carolina has more electoral votes than Arizona, this more than reverses the movement of the expected result from a few days ago when Arizona flipped (just barely) to the blue side.
Looking back and comparing now with exactly two months ago, we see that Trump’s best case has improved from a Clinton 20 EV win to a Trump 76 EV win. The “expected” case has improved from a 138 EV loss to a 130 EV loss. Clinton’s best case has stayed the same. The tipping point has also moved from Clinton by 5.2% to Clinton by 3.0%.
So in 3 out of 4 measures, Trump has improved. In the other there has been no change.
In the Pollster national poll average over the same time period Trump has gone from being behind by 7.4% to being behind by 6.6%. Wait… what was that last one?
Hasn’t everybody been talking about how Trump has been collapsing in the national polls? But he has actually gained ground in the past two months! What is going on here?
How much and in what direction the gap has changed of course all depends on what timeframes you are comparing.
Trump had narrowed the national gap with Clinton to only about 3.2% in mid May. (The RCP average actually had him very slightly ahead at the peak.) Since then, he has fallen back.
But he is still better off than he was in late April. And he has improved even more dramatically if you compare to late March. So the longer term national trend is the gap between Trump and Clinton narrowing, despite the opposite movement in the last month.
With the high resolution polling on the national picture, you could see the “Trump Bump” when after securing the nomination Trump closed the gap and then fell back again. With the slower state by state picture, that essentially may have happened too quickly for it to be visible.
Overall Clinton is clearly in a dominant position over Trump.
But Trump has indeed been catching up in a number of states. He hadn’t actually pulled a state over to his side since February though. Just as it is now, it was also North Carolina back then… and that time it only lasted a month or so before the state went blue again.
We will see soon enough if North Carolina stays red longer this time, and if Trump can pull more “Weak Clinton” states to his side. Pulling back Arizona would be the obvious first target, followed by Pennsylvania, Iowa and Florida. With those four states, Trump would take an overall lead for the first time.
That is all it would take. Four states. Of these Trump is furthest behind in Florida, but he is only behind by 3.0% there. With all the talk of how dire Trump’s situation is, he really isn’t that far back.
If Trump has a few good weeks and Clinton has a few bad weeks, that can change quickly.
Keep watching. 135.8 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. 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.
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