States with new poll data since the last update: New Hampshire, Alabama, Illinois, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming.
In addition to a handful of new polls, this batch of updates includes two sets of 50 states plus DC data from Morning Consult, one released in April covering January through March (with multiple candidate pairs), and another released in July covering April through June (covering only Clinton vs Trump). These span really long time periods and use a slightly different methodology than other polls, so I had initially not included them. But I was convinced by @hominidviews that I actually should include them, so they are now folded into the data.
In most cases, since the middates of the polling periods are fairly far in the past at this point, the addition of these polls only jiggled the lines around in the past rather than changing the situation as of today. Even in the sparsely polled states where these polls did change the average, categories did not generally change.
With the new Morning Consult poll centered in May added, the July PPP poll was enough to end Missouri’s time as a close state that was caused by a March DFM poll that now looks like a pretty clear outlier. So Missouri moves from “Weak Trump” to “Strong Trump” and it is therefore no longer listed as a possible pickup for Clinton.
Back in the past, you can see a few new features added by the Morning Consult polls… a dip in the expected line for a little while in May where Clinton briefly was in the lead in Georgia, and a spike in Clinton’s best case where she got within 5% in Texas… for one day.
The only change that hasn’t already come and gone is the change in Missouri. Clinton’s best case goes from winning by 230 electoral votes down to winning by 210.
Note this is not part of any “convention bump”. This change is due to poll information from before the convention. There should be new polls added soon that will tell us more about the impact of the conventions. This is not that.
Oh, and the Morning Consult data had some Clinton vs Cruz information as well. Since that combination is still one of the five best polled combinations, even though Cruz lost, I’ll note the changes: Kentucky went from Strong Cruz to Weak Cruz, and Minnesota went from Strong Clinton to Weak Clinton. So Clinton’s best case moved from winning by 188 to winning by 204, and Cruz’s best case went from winning by 30 to winning by 50.
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, Sam and Ivan do a Republican National Convention mega show, talking about each night of the convention in detail. But a lot of other things happened this week, so before even starting on the convention they cover Nice and Munich and Syria and Baton Rouge and Miami and Turkey and Roger Ailes and the VP announcements and more. It was a very very busy news week. To top it off, Sam also interviews an actual attendee at the convention. It is a big show. Over three and a half hours this time. Our longest ever. Enjoy!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-07-23
Length this week – 3:40:00
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:00:10-0:06:55) Introduction
Big News Week
Election Graphs vs Curmudgeon’s Corner
(0:07:58-0:32:56) Everything Else Part 1
Nice Attack
Munich Attack
Alex Interlude
US Drone Strike in Syria
Baton Rogue Police Killing
North Miami Shooting
(0:33:09-0:52:39) Everything Else Part 2
Ivan’s Staplers
Attempted Coup in Turkey
Roger Ailes
(0:53:24-1:22:06) Everything Else Part 3
Mike Pence VP Rollout
Republican Rules Committee
Trump and Russia
Leaked DNC docs
Tim Kaine VP Announcement
(1:22:44-1:41:22) Republican National Convention Day 1
Expectations
Rules Vote
Minor Speakers
Melania Speech
(1:42:25-1:57:07) Republican National Convention Day 2
Official Roll Call Vote
Giuliani Speech
Christie Mock Trial
Duck Song
Don Jr Speech
(1:57:55-2:21:15) Republican National Convention Day 3
Cruz Speech
Pence Speech
Trump NYT Interview
(2:21:54-2:56:01) Republican National Convention Day 4
Ivanka Speech
Trump Speech
Trump vs Clinton
(2:57:09-3:35:50) Interview with Marcus the RNC Alternate
Self-Introduction
Political Origins
Primary Support
Unification
Electability
Demographics
NeverTrump efforts
Convention Experience
Protests
Final thoughts
(3:37:10-3:39:40) Wrap up
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: Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Connecticut, Illinois, Idaho, New York.
We have the first state poll that includes data after the start of the Republican National Convention, covering Monday through Wednesday of the convention week. It is for Ohio, and it moves the poll average… toward Clinton.
This move does not change the status of Ohio. It was Weak Clinton before and it Weak Clinton now. But it does change the tipping point, which also moves toward Clinton.
The tipping point moved from a 2.0% Clinton lead in Pennsylvania to a 2.2% Clinton lead in Ohio.
So, aren’t we supposed to be seeing a convention bump for Trump? What’s up with a move toward Clinton during Trump’s convention?
The widespread view at this point is that the Republican Convention has been undisciplined and off message. It is tempting to look at this and start thinking about an “anti-bump” due to a botched convention.
That is premature. One poll in one state moved the average in that state a little, which because that state was near the tipping point also moved that a little bit… by 0.2%. There is not enough here to call a trend. If we saw a number of additional moves in this direction then maybe… but right now, it is just a single small move in isolation.
With the two conventions back to back, it is unlikely we will be able to detect a clear bump pattern for the two conventions individually. Instead, once both conventions are over, and there have been a week or two of post-convention polls, we’ll be able to get a sense if there has been a noticeable impact from the conventions.
In the mean time, we will of course keep watching for any trends that do emerge.
110.0 days until polls start to close on election night…
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, the show was recorded before the attack in Nice, Trump’s final VP pick, and the attempted coup in Turkey. So there will be nothing about those things! But Sam and Ivan do of course talk quite a bit about Election 2016 anyway. The other major topic is racial tensions in the wake of the Philandro Castile and Dallas shootings. The show is rounded out with shorter discussions of hard drive failures, summer camp, the UK prime minister… and Pokemon Go!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-07-14
Length this week – 2:00:48
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:02:41-0:28:28) But First
Hard Drive Failure
Summer Camp
Job Flexibility
Pokemon Go
(0:29:49-1:07:58) Election 2016
Veepstakes
Rules Committee
RBG kerfuffle
Trump sues ex-staffer
Autoplay Videos / Multi-article stories
Republican Convention Agenda
Sanders endorses Clinton
Party Platforms
Swing Voters?
New UK Prime Minister
(1:08:37-2:00:27) Racial Tensions
Bush Dance and Speech
Philando Castile
Obama inflaming racial tensions?
Racial Differences in Police Cases
Dallas Attack
ALeXMXeLA.com
Bomb Robot
Dallas Motivations
Conservatives, protests, and police power
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: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, Missouri
Florida is close. Less than a week ago Trump took the lead for the first time since March.
With the latest polls, Clinton once again has a narrow lead.
With close states, do not be surprised if they go back and forth across the line.
With a big state like Florida, this can cause big fluctuations in the electoral college picture:
So we now have a big spike where Trump very very briefly led narrowly in both Florida and Pennsylvania. Then later polls almost immediately reversed those gains.
We are now back at Clinton 347 to Trump 191 in the “expected case” where everybody just wins all the states they are ahead in. This is a familiar place to be.
The Republican convention starts in 2.0 days. The Democratic convention in 9.1 days. It will probably take until at least a week after both conventions are over, maybe even two or three weeks, to fully know if there have been any enduring changes due to the conventions. So be patient.
Historically, conventions produce short term “bounces” that are fairly transient. They may even be too short to see on a state by state basis. But if any longer lasting changes happen, you’ll see them here.
115.3 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: Iowa, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Florida
In advance of the conventions there has been a large volume of recent polling. For the first time with this update the polling average in some states is based fully on polls with their middates within the last seven days. Right now there is no shortage of state level polling and we are seeing lots of movement. Some of this may be random movement depending on which polls are most recent at any given time, but it is likely we are also detecting actual changes on the ground as well.
With the current batch of polls there are notable changes in four states. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa move toward Trump, while Colorado moves toward Clinton. Lets look at all four of these changes individually, then we’ll review the national picture.
Pennsylvania [20 EV]
Polls for both Quinnipiac and Marist were added with this update. These were released and added on the same day. You can see above though that the Quinnipiac poll (which covers a slightly earlier date range) actually briefly spiked Pennsylvania into Weak Trump before the Marist poll pushed things back to the Clinton side.
Net result together though, Pennsylvania tightens, but Clinton is still ahead… by a narrow 2.0% margin.
With Pennsylvania in play again, Trump’s best case improves. In addition, this change contributed to moving the tipping point toward Trump.
Ohio [18 EV]
With the newest polls Trump sees a bump as some polls very favorable to Clinton from mid-June roll off the average. Clinton now leads Ohio by only 0.8%. There is no change in categories here. Weak Clinton before, Weak Clinton after. But the movement in Ohio combines with the movement in Pennsylvania above to impact the tipping point.
Colorado [9 EV]
After spending what seemed like forever as the least polled “close state”, we all of a sudden have lots and lots of polls in Colorado. The end result? Colorado had looked like a very close state based on the average results of the last few elections. But now that we finally have a decent volume of Clinton vs Trump polls, Clinton has a clear lead. She is now ahead by a healthy 7.0%.
So in the only one of today’s moves that is in Clinton’s direction, Colorado moves out of reach for Trump. At least for now. This reduces Trump’s best case.
Iowa [6 EV]
New Gravis and Marist polls push Loras polls from the end of June off the average… polls which now look like clear outliers… and so the average moves in Trump’s direction. Iowa now looks very close, sitting at a 1.0% Clinton lead.
With Iowa close again, it is once again included as a possible Trump pick up, improving his best case.
National View
Once you factor in the two states moving toward Trump and the one state moving forward Clinton, Trump’s best case moves from winning by 6 electoral votes to winning by 40 electoral votes. No net change for the expected case despite the temporary spike.
The more impressive change though is actually with the tipping point:
With two states moving in ways that impact the tipping point, it moves from Clinton by 4.3% in Ohio to Clinton by 2.0% in Pennsylvania. This is the best position Trump has had in this metric since last August.
Trump is of course still behind. But a 2.0% tipping point means you only would need 1% of people flipping from Clinton to Trump to push Trump into the lead, or undecideds breaking in his direction. For the first time in a long time, this is looking like a close race again.
Looking at the center of the spectrum, Trump’s shortest path to being in the lead goes through Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. All of those states have Clinton in the lead, but by less than 2.0%, a margin that could easily evaporate overnight.
With the Republican convention starting in less than 4 days, if we see Trump get the traditional “bump” we may well see him actually in the lead for the first time this cycle sometime in the next couple weeks. This assumes of course the convention ends up coming off smoothly. If the convention becomes chaotic, the bump may evaporate.
Also acting against the bump, the Democratic convention starts only a few days after the Republican convention ends. There is no significant gap between the two conventions. Which may make any bump too transitory to measure in an electoral college based view.
If we see even a minor bump though, at this point it would be enough to put Trump in the lead.
To close up today, a quick look at the current map:
117.2 days until polls start closing on Election night 2016. The conventions are upon us. Things will be nuts from here until November. Hold on tight! :-)
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 updated with new poll data since last update: Nevada, Florida, Kentucky, New Hampshire
Just a couple weeks ago we were talking about how Clinton’s lead in Florida had gotten quite large, and it moved out of the possible pickups for Trump. This was on the strength of a number of polls that covered mid-June that were very positive toward Clinton, showing leads as high as 15% in the state. The worst mid-June poll for Clinton still showed her ahead by 6%. Those polls have now rolled off the average, replaced by new polls much more favorable to Trump. With the two new Florida polls added in this update, things move very rapidly in Trump’s direction:
With the two new polls in the mix, the average moved from Strong Clinton to Weak Clinton on June 28th. But things kept getting better for Trump. On July 10th the average moved from Weak Clinton to Weak Trump.* Trump takes the lead in Florida for the first time since March. At 29 electoral votes Florida makes a huge difference.
You can now see an upward movement on Trump’s best case a couple weeks ago, followed by the bump upward in the expected case more recently.
The electoral college view can move very quickly, especially when a big state like Florida swings its weight around. So after a few weeks of bad news for Trump and the trend looking like it was heading relentlessly against him, we now have the chart showing movement back toward Trump.
Trump is still behind, but once again he has a “best case” that includes him winning. With Florida not just in play, but actually on his side for the moment, if Trump wins all the states he is ahead in, plus all the states where Clinton leads by less than 5%, he squeaks out a narrow 6 electoral vote win.
In the “expected case” were each candidate wins the states they are ahead in, Trump now only loses by 98 electoral votes. This is now better than Romney’s 126 electoral vote loss as well as McCain’s 192 electoral vote loss. So while Trump is still losing, with current polling he is actually improving on the performance of the last two Republican candidates.
With Florida moving, the “tipping point” also moves:
Before this update the tipping point was a 5.7% Clinton lead in Florida. Now it is a 4.3% Clinton lead in Ohio.
One thing to point out in both of the graphs above is that we see a lot of volatility in the “Trump best case” and “tipping point” lines in the last couple of months. This is the natural result of general election polling ramping up once the nominations were settled. States that are near the tipping point or near category boundaries will “twinkle” as new polls cause the averages to bounce around. This will only increase as we get closer and closer to November. Although I post updates each time states move around in this way, it is important to watch the longer term trends, while remembering that things can sometimes shift quickly.
For now though, the current summary looks like this:
It is hard to overstate the importance of Florida here. With Florida out of reach, Trump’s best case was to lose. With Florida on his side, a win is once again in reach, although he still needs to flip every single one of Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado, North Carolina, and Ohio to do it.
119.7 days until polls close on election day. Less than 6 days until the gavel drops on the Republican convention.
* For those wondering why in this single update we start referencing changes that happened in the average on June 28th and July 10th rather than a change that happens as of this update, this is because the graphs reflect changes due to polls at the mid-dates of the time they were in the field, not at the time the poll is announced, or the time I enter the poll into my data. So today two polls were added, the first covered June 26 to 28 and the second covered July 9 to 10. These became the most recent and 4th most recent polls I know about in Florida, and the line showing the average adjusts to reflect changes at the midpoint of those date ranges.
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.
Polls added since last update: Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wisconsin, Oregon, Vermont, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Maine (All), Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah.
In addition to a number of actual new polls, I recently got a helpful batch of data from Darryl, another election modeler who posts at horsesass.org. His latest update is here. His analysis uses state polling averages, but then runs a Monte Carlo simulation to generate a distribution of possible outcomes and win odds, rather than simply the electoral result range based on the close states going one way or another like I do here. Good stuff, you should check it out.
In any case, Darryl sent me a batch of polls he had in his database that I had apparently missed. Most of these were older polls and though they jiggled the lines in the past a bit, did not change the current analysis. Except in one state: Colorado.
Colorado has been very lightly polled given how it is one of the states that has actually gone both ways in the last five elections. The poll Darryl had found which I had missed was a Keating poll back in February, that showed Clinton with a significant lead. With only three Clinton vs Trump polls total so far, and old elections filling out the polling average, that one poll makes a difference.
With that poll now in place, the average moves from “Weak Trump” to “Weak Clinton”. In fact, since it was an older poll that was responsible for the change, Colorado has actually been “Weak Clinton” for months now, we just didn’t know it. This change is now reflected in all the graphs.
Everything on the center “expected result” line since late February moves down 18 as Colorado’s 9 electoral votes flip from red to blue. Colorado still looks close though. Clinton’s lead is only 2.9% and the three polls we do have range from Clinton up 10%, to Trump up 11%. We still don’t have a really great picture of Colorado. More polls are needed there.
In the mean time, the new national summary looks like this:
We still have a picture of Clinton dominating Trump. Even if Trump wins all the close states, he still loses. In the expected case, Trump’s result is still better than McCain but worse than Romney. A loss to be sure, but a loss comparable to the Republican losses in the last two elections, not an unusually bad loss.
We are now only a week away from the Republican convention. There is usually a bit of a bounce after a convention (although it usually doesn’t last too long). But this year is unusual. Who knows what we will see.
120.3 days until polls start to close on Election 2016.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. 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 Sam and Ivan spend the most time on Election 2016. So you will hear all about the latest Trump craziness and the Clinton email scandal. But there is a lot more here too! We recorded before Philandro Castile’s death or the attacks in Dallas, so that will have to wait until next week, but Sam has an adventure with the IRS and we talk about our theme music by Ray Lynch! And in a lightning round we briefly cover over a dozen other topics from the space probe at Jupiter to Puerto Rican bankruptcy to how Sam rigs the election polls… and more!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-07-07
Length this week – 2:01:41
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:01:58-0:20:23) But First
Agenda
Sam and the IRS
Ivan Family
Ray Lynch
(0:21:03-1:02:56) Election 2016: Republicans
Star of David Tweet
Trump likes Saddam Hussein
Trump throwing the election?
Trump rape charges
Free the delegates?
(1:04:12-1:27:12) Election 2016: Democrats
Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch
Clinton Email Scandal
Sanders Foot Dragging
Veepstakes
(1:27:53-2:01:21) Lightning Round
Juno at Jupiter
Brexit Fallout
Tesla Crashes
Non-Western Terror Attacks
EgyptAir Update
Puerto Rican Bankrupcy
Chilcot Report
Alton Sterling
Christian Mingle
ALeXMXeLA.com
Gretchen Carslon lawsuit
Book: Earth Afire
Trump and the Frozen book
Rigging the Polls for Clinton
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.
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan’s big topics are Brexit and Election 2016. In addition though, they talk about Low Battery Mode, the Yelchin accident, SCOTUS, and even a bit about Ivan’s latest Uber driver and a connection to a class Sam and Ivan took in college.
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-06-29
Length this week – 2:01:53
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:00:10-0:13:20) But First
(0:13:59-0:27:26) Yelchin accident
(0:28:29-0:58:17) Brexit
(0:59:20-1:47:04) Election 2016
(1:48:22-2:01:33) SCOTUS
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.
