With Trump not currently doing all that well in the polls at the moment, there has been occasional chatter that maybe we’re not just looking at a Trump loss, but a Clinton landslide.
But what exactly is a landslide? There isn’t a really precise definition. Wikipedia says “A landslide victory is an electoral victory in a political system, when one candidate or party receives an overwhelming majority of the votes or seats in the elected body, thus all but utterly eliminating the opponents.”
That’s nice, but not very mathematical. I suppose you could define it in terms of absolute numbers “Landslide is over 80% of the vote” or something like that. But I think you should look in terms of the results in comparison to other elections.
So let me take a shot at defining a landslide in terms of being in the top X% of the elections in terms of the margin of victory. I figured I’d look at US presidential elections and what that would look like at 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%.
Or course there are also two ways of looking at US Presidential elections, by popular vote and by electoral college. So lets look at both. I’ll rank by simple percentage margin, so (winner-loser)/total.
Popular Vote
2016 will be the 49th presidential election where there was a popular vote tally (since 1824)
5% biggest wins would be the top 2. Margin to be a landslide = 25.22% (Coolidge 1924)
10% biggest wins would be the top 4. Margin to be a landslide = 23.14% (Nixon 1972)
15% biggest wins would be the top 7. Margin to be a landslide = 18.21% (Reagan 1984)
20% biggest wins would be the top 9. Margin to be a landslide = 17.76% (Roosevelt 1932)
5% biggest wins would be the top 2. Margin to be a landslide = 97.0% (Roosevelt 1936)
10% biggest wins would be the top 5. Margin to be a landslide = 84.1% (Jefferson 1804)
15% biggest wins would be the top 8. Margin to be a landslide = 80.7% (Johnson 1964)
20% biggest wins would be the top 10. Margin to be a landslide = 72.3% (Eisenhower 1956)
Clinton vs Trump
As of right now (August 12th), estimating via current polls:
Popular Vote margin (using Pollster.com average) = Clinton by 7.7%. This would rank as #25 out of 49. Almost exactly in the middle.
Electoral Vote margin (using Election Graphs expected case) = Clinton by 188/538 = 34.9%. This would rank as #32 out of 54. Just below the middle.
If current margins hold, neither of these measures are even close to being in the top 20% in terms of how big a victory it would be. Really, it looks more like it is pretty close to a median win, with about half of elections being bigger wins, and about half being closer.
Now, we have 88 days left. In a normal election we would expect it would probably get tighter between now and November. With Trump being Trump, maybe it will go the other way a bit further.
But Clinton’s lead would have to increase by a LOT to make this election rank with the big landslides of the past.
Some people have argued that with today’s highly polarized landscape, we need to redefine landslide downward, so a much smaller win can be called a landslide. While many people may indeed end up doing that if Clinton wins by the kinds of margins seen above, I think this is silly. A win that is right near the median historically is not a landslide. Sorry.
The truth is just that we are in a time where the public is relatively closely divided… which means the environment is not very conducive to a true landslide win. Given where we are, winning the popular vote by over 7%, or the electoral college by over 180 electoral votes, may indeed be a very impressive achievement. A bigger win than might be expected even.
States with new poll data since the last update: Virginia, Nevada, Arizona
The polls keep coming, as they will straight through November. This time there is one change of note, reversing the movement in Nevada from a few days ago.
The polls making up the average still range from Clinton +4.0% to Trump +5.0%. There is wide variance here. The latest poll moves the average to Clinton +0.6%. So just on the Clinton side of the line again. In the end though, the best we can really say is that Nevada could easily go either way given current polling.
For the moment though, Nevada is back on the Clinton side of the center line.
This changes the “expected case” where everybody wins all the states where they lead the polls to Clinton 363 Trump 175, a 188 electoral vote margin for Clinton.
This is Clinton’s best showing in the expected case, tying a brief period in May. The other metrics are not at record levels at the moment, but this is the most important of the metrics tracked here… the actual expected outcome of the election.
The time since the conventions ended has been very good for Clinton. So far. We’ll see how long the trend continues. Clinton may well be near a ceiling here. At this point further gains for Clinton would be involve pulling in states like Arizona, Texas, or Utah. Those states are much closer that was once expected, but they may be very hard to pull in that last little bit.
Of course, even if this is a ceiling for Clinton, the ceiling is at a level where she wins decisively. If we actually see those states going blue, it may be time to start talking about a landslide after all. In the mean time though, if this was a normal campaign, the more realistic expectation would be to see things start drifting back toward Trump from here.
With how things are going though, who knows.
93.1 days until polls start to close 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.
States with new poll data since the last update: Georgia, Michigan
The string of bad news for Trump continues. This time out of Georgia:
Georgia has looked like a swing state ever since there were enough Clinton vs Trump polls to draw any real conclusions. It has consistently looked close. There was even a brief time in May where Clinton led in Georgia.*
With the latest results in Georgia, Clinton once again leads… but the polls in the average range from Clinton +4.0% to Trump +4.0%. The average itself is very close. Clinton only leads by 0.3%. The only real conclusion here right now is that Georgia could go either way. Which is remarkable, since this is Georgia. Georgia hasn’t gone blue since Bill Clinton won there in 1992.
Clinton’s very narrow lead here may well disappear with the very next poll, but for the moment, she is slightly ahead, so Georgia goes into her column.
If each candidate wins each of the states they are ahead in, Clinton now wins 357 to 181, a 176 electoral vote margin. This doesn’t yet match her high in May of a 188 electoral vote win in the expected case, but it is getting close.
With talk of a massive Trump loss once again dominating the chatter about the election, keep in mind that a 176 electoral vote margin still places Trump in the zone where he is doing worse than Romney (126 EV loss) but better than McCain (192 EV loss). Trump is losing, but it is the same sort of loss as the last couple of Republican candidates, not something of historic proportions. At least not at the moment.
Of course, there are 94.2 days until the polls close. That is plenty of time for things to change. A lot. It could get worse for Trump… or it could get better. It may well be that the latest drops are part of a Clinton convention bounce and not permanent damage for Trump. We’ll know better in a few weeks.
* This was not noted at the time because the poll that pushed Clinton over the edge wasn’t found and added until after the state had popped back to Trump.
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.
On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast most of the show is on all the crazy Trump news from the last week. There was a lot. Battles with Khan, complaints about debates and voter fraud, the baby incident, the non-endorsements… and much much more. Sam and Ivan cover all of it. But first they cover some of the other events in the world… Libya, Zika, Clinton’s email… and they celebrate a milestone for the show!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-08-04
Length this week – 1:52:18
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:00:10-0:04:45) But First
Agenda
100 Downloads!
(0:05:30-0:33:08) Everything Else
Libya Engagement
American Wars
Zika Response
Clinton Email Lie
Iran Cash
(0:33:46-0:53:32 ) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 1
Trump vs Khan
Trump on debates
Trump on voter fraud
Trump’s effect on GOP after a loss
(0:55:32-1:19:14 ) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 2
Trump and the Baby
Trump non-endorsements
Trump ignites GOP Civil War
Trump’s faithless elector
Trump dump?
(1:20:17-1:51:58) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 3
Trump University
Trump’s Purple Heart
Trump’s WaPo Interview
Trump and the Iran Video
Trump on nukes
Trump sanity
The GOP owns this
No more ticket splitting
I’m with her
Note: Timestamps are accurate, but many audio players are not very precise on the timestamps they show, especially when scanning forwards and backwards, so depending on your player, if you scan to a specific time, you may not get exactly what is shown above and may have to scan back or forward a bit to get what is expected.
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
States with new poll data since the last update: Tennessee, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Kentucky.
It looks like Trump’s last couple of bad weeks are starting to hit the state poll averages. In this update, we have model changes caused by the movement in three states. All three changes favor Clinton.
Going through them one by one…
Michigan [16 EV]
First of all, I will point out a new feature on these charts. There are now vertical dotted lines marking significant campaign events. Right now that is the Iowa caucuses, when the candidates won their primaries and the conventions. When/if debates happen, they will get marked as well. This is helpful in understanding the moves vs what may be going on in the campaign.
In Michigan specifically, you can see that Trump was gaining on Clinton in the run up to the conventions. The average popped up into the “close state” zone right before the conventions started. But with the first post-convention polls, Clinton’s lead increases again. She now has a 6.1% lead in Michigan, and the state is no longer included in Trump’s “best case”.
New Hampshire [4 EV]
A poll taken during the Republican convention was the best result Trump has ever gotten in New Hampshire. This had moved the average to an very narrow 0.3% Clinton lead. The first results from after the Democratic convention on the other hand are some of the worst results Trump has seen in New Hampshire, and Clinton’s lead rises to 6.4%. So, like Michigan, New Hampshire is no longer looking like a possible Trump pick up. Since New Hampshire also moved past the tipping point, the tipping point also moved.
Now, both the Trump result during the Republican convention, and these new results look like outliers. Every other poll since May has been between a tie and Clinton +5%. So polls showing Trump up by 9.4%, or polls showing Clinton up by 17% should all be taken with a massive grain of salt. Given national trends some swing toward Clinton is expected, but we need to see more polls before concluding that the swing toward Clinton in New Hampshire is quite as large as the new polling indicates.* This is of course why we only look at averages rather than individual polls. The average moved quite a bit, but it doesn’t instantly snap to these new results. But it still moves enough to make a difference.
Florida [27 EV]
The first post-convention results in Florida move the average toward Clinton. Florida goes from a 0.7% Clinton lead to a 3.8% Clinton lead. No category change here. Florida is still weak Clinton, but since the average passes the tipping point, the tipping point gets shifted.
National View
With each of the three states that caused changes out of the way, time to look at the national picture.
First the “bubble” showing the best and expected cases over time:
Right before the Democratic convention ended, Trump’s best case was up to winning by 98 electoral votes. Since then Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Hampshire have slipped out of reach. His best case is now down to winning by only 18 electoral votes. He is one bad poll in Virginia, Florida, or North Carolina away from once again having his best case be a loss.
And with the movements in Florida and New Hampshire the tipping point moves dramatically as well:
The tipping point margin… that is the margin in the state that would put the candidate “over the top” if you order the states by how strongly they support the candidates, moves from Clinton by 2.3% in North Carolina to Clinton by 3.9% in Virginia.
Before the conventions, Trump had dramatically improved his position in the tipping point. He was still losing, but by much less than before. He has now given up about 40% of the margin he gained.
A 3.9% tipping point margin… which is basically equivalent to the national popular vote margin, but adjusted for the structure of the electoral college… is still a close race. But not as close as it was before the conventions… and there are many close states that have not yet had post-convention polls.
Given where national polling is right now, once we do get more state polls, it would not be surprising to see Trump continue to drop in the short term.
95.7 days until the first polls start to close on election day.
* For the wonkiest of you out there: All three results showing Clinton up by double digits were from the same underlying WBUR poll sliced in different ways, so were not actually fully independent samples, so they don’t count as additional confirmation. This election cycle when I have a single poll that reports multiple results… just 2 candidates along side with 4 candidates, or registered voters and likely voters, or first response vs pushing leaners, I’m including ALL of the results rather than having some set of rules for picking only one. There are strong arguments for NOT doing this, specifically what I just mentioned about the results not being truly independent of each other, so you essentially end up giving more weight than you would otherwise to that pollster, simply because they reported their results in several different ways. I am simply defaulting to including everything on the theory that being more complete is better. I do understand the downsides though. I may decide to handle this a different way in 2020, but this is how it is for 2016. :-)
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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 since the last update: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada.
The post convention polls continue to come in, but the most recent batch brings mixed results. One state moving toward Clinton, another moving toward Trump. Lets look at them.
Pennsylvania [20 EV]
With the new PPP results added, Quinnipiac data from early July drop off the average. Those Quinnipiac results were the best polls for Trump in Pennsylvania in almost a year. Without them, Clinton looks much better off. The poll average moves from a Clinton lead of 4.4% to a Clinton lead of 6.9%.
With that, we once again classify Pennsylvania as “Strong Clinton” and take it off the list of states where Trump is “close” and thus a Trump win is plausible.
Nevada [6 EV]
Compared to many other close states, Nevada has been sparsely polled. The latest poll actually has Clinton ahead, but by less than the poll it replaces in the average, so the average moves toward Trump… and crosses the center line! For the first time this election cycle, the Nevada poll average shows a Trump lead. A small 0.4% Trump lead, but a lead none the less.
National Picture
Between these two states, we have two changes in the national picture which can be seen on the national trend chart:
The upper right of the “bubble” shows a brief spike from Virginia moving into the close category yesterday, immediately followed by a drop due to the Pennsylvania change today. This looks like it might be a “top” and a start of a Trump decline in his “best case”, but as usual, use caution in making those sorts of determinations based on a single change. If more states move from Weak Clinton to Strong Clinton over the next few weeks, then that might be a valid conclusion. For now though it is premature.
And of course we have Nevada moving in the opposite direction at the same time. Nevada is a small state, but moves in the “expected case” are rare compared to changes in Trump’s best case. There was a short spike in early July that lasted a grand total of two days, but other than that this is the first move of the actual expected result toward Trump since May. We’ll see if this time it lasts longer than two days.
98.2 days until polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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 since the last update: Missouri, Arizona, Virginia, Oklahoma
We’ve only had a couple of polls that were taken completely after both conventions, but one of them, a RABA poll in Virginia, actually makes a notable difference:
The RABA poll actually shows Trump ahead in Virginia by 4%. This is the best single result Trump has ever gotten against Clinton in Virginia, and is noticeably out of line with other recent results. This could be a real result of movement caused by the two conventions… or it could just be an outlier. In any case, we just throw it into the average with everything else for now, and Virginia moves from Clinton +5.5% to Clinton +3.9%.
This is of course under 5%, so our categorization for Virginia changes from “Strong Clinton” to “Weak Clinton” and Virginia is now considered a possible Trump pick up in his “best case”:
If Trump holds all the states he is ahead in, and then steals all the states where Clinton’s lead is less than 5%, we end up with Trump 318 to Clinton 220, a 98 electoral vote win for Trump. This is the best best case Trump has seen since early March.
Trump is succeeding in making a lot of states close, but so far has not had much success in actually dragging them over the line to his side. The “expected case” remains stubbornly stuck at Clinton 347, Trump 191, a 156 electoral vote win for Clinton.
We have now broken the 100 day barrier. 99.4 days left until the polls start to close 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.
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner, Sam and Ivan of course spend most of the show on the Democratic National Convention, with commentary on all the major speeches, and the inevitable comparisons to the RNC the week before. In addition to the DNC itself, they do cover this week’s terrorist attacks in Europe, the DNC email hack, where polling stands today, and Trump’s invitation to Russian hackers. Oh, and for some reason pineapples make an appearance.
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-07-29
Length this week – 2:01:56
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:00:32-0:08:45) Starting Up
Tired Ivan
Ivan’s bad flight
Pineapple
Agenda
(0:09:23-0:48:16) Everything Else
Terrorist Attacks
Trump Convention Bounce?
DNC Emails
Trump’s Russian Invite
(0:49:24-1:17:59) Democratic National Convention Part 1
Convention Comparison
Sanders Holdouts
Booker for President?
Michelle Obama Speech
Elizabeth Warren Speech
Bernie Sanders Speech
(1:18:38-1:39:54) Democratic National Convention Part 2
Roll Call Vote
Dean Scream 2
Bill Clinton Speech
Joe Biden Speech
Barack Obama Speech
(1:41:13-2:01:36) Democratic National Convention Part 3
Chelsea Clinton Speech
Hillary Clinton Speech
Convention Comparison Part 2
Note: Timestamps are accurate, but many audio players are not very precise on the timestamps they show, especially when scanning forwards and backwards, so depending on your player, if you scan to a specific time, you may not get exactly what is shown above and may have to scan back or forward a bit to get what is expected.
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
States with new poll data since the last update: Pennsylvania, California, Oregon, Delaware, Vermont, Indiana
Results from a Suffolk poll in Pennsylvania taken during the first three days of the Democratic National Convention move that state’s average toward Clinton.
The average moves from a 2.0% lead to a 4.4% lead. This is not an insubstantial jump toward Clinton, but either way we classify the state as “Weak Clinton”. Pennsylvania was the tipping point state though, so the tipping point moves too…
The tipping point moves from Clinton in Pennsylvania by 2.0% to Clinton in North Carolina by 2.3%.
This is a pretty small change in the grand scheme of things. Compare to the huge move of the tipping point in Trump’s direction from mid-June to mid-July.
Is the new jag downward the start of a new larger move back toward Clinton? Too soon to say. Stay tuned.
102.6 days until polls start to close…
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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 since the last update: Georgia, Ohio, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Kansas.
The quick answer to the question in the subject of this post is “not yet”, at least in terms of what can be detected in state poll averages like we track here. Plenty has been written elsewhere on the Trump bump in national polling averages such as Pollster and RCP. There does appear to be a bump after the Republican convention. It takes a lot longer for these effects to show up at the state level, so we are unlikely to see individual effects for the two conventions. Instead we’ll see the net effect after both.
In the meantime, there are indeed two changes from the latest batch of polls, and they both are in Trump’s direction. In one case the data is from before the convention, and in the other the movement is small, so it isn’t enough to call out as a bump yet. Looking at them individually:
Michigan
Even though one poll was just added, the most recent poll in Michigan is still from before the Republican convention, so we can’t read anything about a bump into it. But it did cause some polls that were very favorable to Clinton to roll off the poll average, so the average spikes up in Trump’s direction.
There haven’t been any polls actually showing Trump ahead in Michigan in almost a year, but with this Clinton’s lead drops to 4.8%, so we consider it a potential pickup for Trump.
Trump’s best case moves from winning by 40 electoral votes to winning by 72 electoral votes. To get there he still has to flip Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan. Clinton is still ahead in all of those states, but by less than 5%. The “expected” result where everybody wins the states they are ahead in is still a 156 electoral vote victory for Clinton.
But Trump doesn’t need to flip ALL of those states to win, only some of them. How close is he really? That is where Ohio and the tipping point come in…
Ohio
New results from PPP, which ARE from after the Republican convention move the average from a 2.2% Clinton lead in Ohio to a 1.0% lead. Either way, the state is “Weak Clinton”, but because Ohio was the tipping point, this impacts the tipping point:
The tipping point moves from Clinton by 2.2% in Ohio to Clinton by 2.0% in Pennsylvania… so back to where it was right before the Republican National Convention started.
National View
Looking at the center part of spectrum of states… only those where the margin is under 10%, we now have this:
And the map:
That is a lot of close or almost close states.
105.2 days until polls start to close on election day 2016.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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.
